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This is defently worth watching if you don't watch it then well your missing out big time. One of the best dramas I ever seen !!!
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This review may contain spoilers
Very nice music
Music was iconic, SML sung that song at his wedding afaik.On SFL, my opinion (not sure if shared, but I would say factually correct) is that the show *did* kind of shy away from the wreckage she left behind her, for example by not showing flashbacks of HS bearing with her lies for more than a year, or imagining her with her lover, etc. This was all mentioned, but then it was either dropped or brushed aside, so it was:
1. Kind of brought up in single occasions and then not mentioned again
2. Ignored as if phychological trauma and emotional damage simply disappeared when convenient, as if by choice, like one could flip a switch rather than go to therapy
3. Minimized, or muted/dampened reactions compared to the true pain and emotional damage and wreckage that going through such experiences would have caused, which is why I never suspected a betrayal until he brought it up at the airport... I would say, for example, that his adverse reaction to DK was tamed even if you consider he played it cool while being hurt and disturbed, but it was I would say not even, or barely, the level of insecurity one would feel for her running away with the guy, not what I would expect if she had actually been seeing him behind his back for more than a year prior to running off with him. Also him meeting the guy and shaking hands, and putting up that atrocious conversation about a project with the guy that couldn't even remember how many time he had met him, as if everything was okay.
I would also say definitively that she wasn't really willing to face such damage and was not even asked to, and in fact did not, despite her wanting to have another chance with Han-sung. When he unloaded the pain he felt at knowing and putting up with her more than year long daily lies when she told him she was working while meeting DK behind his back, and then run off ignoring his pleas and begging for her to stay, she brushes it aside and absurdly assumes that now that he had could be with her after all that pain and effort (on his part) he should not even think about feeling love for anyone else... Can one get more delusional than someone that assumes that humiliating and deceiving your partner for more than a year, then running of with your lover for two without a single word, makes for someone that one would want to have around? Anyone sane would have told her that he would leave the "honor" and "privilege" of dating her to someone else, and the true question is not how he could love someone else, but how couldn't he love anyone else (including nobody, i.e. staying single). Not that this is ever discussed again in any serious manner, it's brought up in a creepy fashion at the end where HS is made to listen to her minimize and brush aside flippantly this horrific betrayal and try to compare it with his onesided and short lived mini-crush and unreciprocated little kiss, which is about as serious a comparison as one's pimple and Mt. Everest. One then wonders why he didn't open up about his insecurities about DK, who he understandable hates, as he says, and played it cool while not being okay, something she knew and exploited -mentioning their NY home in front of him, trying to make him jealous with a man she cheated with for more than a year, and telling him DK loves her still and she might be starting to feel the same when she threatened going to NY... is this the behavior of someone that cares about their partner's psychological health and emotional well being or of someone that is self centered and doesn't put any weight in the (impossible) task or rebuilding trust (not that she is ever asked to, it's an issue that by magic does not make an appearance, again the consequences of her actions being brought up only when convenient for the plot). Making a joke out of his insecurities with DK and her betrayal after witnessing his emotional breakdown at the side of the road to the airport? And listening to that and still being concerned only with what she felt, daring to talk about feeling pathetic when he confessed to having lived through the hell of knowing of her betrayal for more than a year, forgiving her and begging her to stay, only to be left when she run off with her lover and he didn't hear from her again for two years? How self absorbed and utterly shameless do you need to be to prioritize yourself?
I don't know if this would be considered a wicked woman trope, to be honest none of the characters were flat, but she as sure as anything is true was toxic in the extreme, I would say even up until the end we have her talking about wanting to escape the damaged pride of having HS leave her by running away first (and therefore lying about it being about giving him a choice -she was strong arming him and not giving him space, after he was willing to wait for her for years -not that he should have, he should have tried to move past it, given that despite the delusion of imagining some mystical connection, the reality of the situation is that she had been lying to his face for more than a year and then run off, and only came back after she and DK broke up, which absolutely nothing guaranteed would happen... and if you think someone would never stab you in the back and then deceive you for more than a year, maybe it's time to consider that you don't know them as well as you think you did, and the person worthy of such loyalty, respect, honesty and trust existed only in his head, while the real person did not deserve any of those things, having shown herself to be disloyal and untrustworthy. One would reevaluate their judgment (and in the case of anyone sane with a shred of love and respect and self dignity, conclude that they didn't deserve him, or his loyalty, respect and trust, having shown him none of the former two and broken the latter -his trust-.
I wouldn't really say the show treated every character with mercy and understanding and nuance, I really felt that HS's insecurities and trauma was swept under the rug, I would have liked much more focus on the more than year long deception and the whole background: she said she loved DK. Did she not love HS? And now she loves him again? And doesn't love DK? What happened? How did it come about? Can they please address her betrayal without making a joke about it (and forcing HS to go along with the joke the same way they were joking about HS and FL, namely not really a joke)? And maybe his insecurities around DK, without him feeling unable to open up and having to play it cool, with her mocking him when she knew about how he felt towards the guy and still teased him, talked to him on the phone and had one on one meetings and lunch with the guy, and used him, the person she had been betraying HS with for more than a year and run off with for two more, to make HS jealous, something that appears insanely cruel. I mean, think about the pain when he brought up the more than year long string of lies she told to his face on the side road on the way to the airport, which she brushed aside in the most insulting way possible, and with the most revolting moral equivalence -really, more than one year of hell where she cheats on someone that would never even take coffee with another girl, and for which she was his whole world and would have never thought her capable of such a betrayal, followed by running off with her lover to another continent without a word for two years, talked about in the same phrase as a one sided mini-crush with a small unreciprocated kiss? Messages with someone that rejected him that he read on the side? When she is someone that deceived him in such a manner for more than a year, and shows no respect or consideration for his perspective, minimizing and making a joke out of his understandable insecurities, flirting and meeting up with someone she cheated on HS with for more than a year, and that still has feelings for her (and is creepily ambiguous and touchy feely, the intimate head caress taking on a whole other feeling after her betrayal and considering that, contrary to the cousin who put his head on her lap, DK did get between her and HS). Nothing about this is her taking responsibility in any mature sense, or in any sense of the word at all, in fact she merely showed up after more than a year of lies and two years where he didn't heard from her and knew of her through the press, and he basically took her back immediately. None of the issues are discussed after being brought up, his insecurities and the betrayal are made into a joke, rather than taken seriously and actually addressed, and she does absolutely nothing to gain his trust back (or not lose it further, for example by meeting up with a still smitten man who she cheated on HS with while not only fully knowing his insecurities after she had completely destroyed his trust, but even exploiting these insecurities to make him jealous, throwing DK's love in his face and telling him she might be loving him back again, and threatening to leave, despite his pleading, rather than giving him space -in the end, she doesn't give him space, it's him that is reduced to begging and then she comes back after going missing without saying anything-). Not that I think in real life it would be possible for her to rebuild said trust, but it's interesting to note that she does not even try, and the show basically brushes everything aside and she is taken back immediately, her using a men she cheated with to coerce HS into begging her not to leave turns into mocking his insecurities around DK, and talking about wounded pride (one of, but certainly not the main reason he would not want to hear his name, and more than enough to make his blood boil, given the more than year long betrayal, her callousness and lack of consideration in talking with him on the phone and meeting up one on one, having lunch together, and explicitly making use of him to make him jealous, without any consideration for how he might have felt, despite playing it cool, after she had lied to him for more than a year and run off for two... again, the threat makes it clear she knew exactly what buttons to push, and the flirting with the cousin might not be threatening because he doesn't have a chance -but still inconsiderate all things considered for her not to put down boundaries-, but the intimate interaction with DK, not putting down strong boundaries as he tried to flirt with her, but rather cleverly retorting while meeting up together to reminish about their first meeting, him touching her head intimately, etc., while he was the man she cheated on HS with, and she is supposed to try to make an attempt to heal the emotional wounds, rebuild trust, address his insecurities with care, concern and respect for his point of view -not necessarily agreeing, but at least taking it seriously and not turning it into a joke-... she is doing the opposite of that, not that imho in reality she would have a chance to rebuild trust even if she tried, but the show does not even require her to, she is taken back and he is the one begging her not to leave a second time, kimtchi takes up more time than working through the betrayal).
Bottom line, she barely apologizes, contrary to My Mister the actual consequences of the betrayal are not really shown -to the point that until the episode with the breakdown at the side of the road to the airport I was convinced she had simply left him, not lied to him for more than a year, which has totally different implications... dumping him would have been a choice that treated him with respect and honesty if she didn't love him, and loved DK, given that the alternative was doing what she did, namely humiliating and deceiving him for more than a year are quite another matter-. My Mister talks about how dramas romanticize or minimize affairs, and in this case we conveniently are not shown flashbacks of the pair of discovering the betrayal, or thinking about her with her lover behind his back, etc., we are only shown, impossibly, happy memories, which given his outburst in the beginning and at the side of the road were not the only thing on his mind... but if we were show it, then we would be forced to face reality and wonder why would anyone with a shred of self respect and self dignity pine after someone like that or want to take her back, same reason, I guess (in addition to shock value) to make it clear that she actually was lying about working and seeing DK behind his back for more than a year so late in the game, increasing the chances that the viewer is already committed to the pairing (in fact the betrayal is not brought up in a serious manner ever again, despite the obvious pain HS felt when he brought it up, and it being a raw issue that would realistically have needed to be discussed together with the DK elephant in the room, and her using his pain at her betrayal to make him jealous, weaponizing the wound she had inflicted in a sociopathically cruel and sadistic fashion. Again, good thing that at least she was jealous (the reason she did this) because at least she cared, then again when she talked about the pride of not letting him leave her, when he was begging her to stay after more of a year of lies back in the day, and is now begging her again after her repulsive ultimatum and power play on his emotional wounds tied to DK, threatening to leave him for DK, or when she mentioned feeling pathetic when he watched messages (platonic ones) from FL after hearing him confess the heartbreak of more than a year of her lying to his face and abandoning him among his pleas, not to be heard from for two years... I mean, does she have any shame, any sense of perspective? Is it possible for her to not even acknowledge that what she is feeling is a billionth of what he had felt, than what he had done is a billionth of a fraction than what she had put him through, a hell that lasted for a long time? How could she be focused on herself and talk about this without acknowledging *his* pain, humiliation, wounded pride, broken self dignity and self respect (he resorted to begging and was ignored), broken trust... I mean, to hear this and not want to disappear in shame at the very notion of talking about yourself, given the magnitude of the difference in what she had done to him.... this is not taking responsibility in any sense of the word. The definition of toxicity.
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My fav kdrama of all time!
Coffee prince is literally my fav kdrama of all time. So good. I mean the plot and the acting was amazing. No serious, I rewatch this show every year, no lie. It's so good, nothing can top this show!Acting in this show, top notch....literally all the characters are so amazing!
Yoon Eun Hye played her role to perfection. I honestly don't know if anyone could have played it better.
Gong Yoo character's had such an fantastic growth, he literally learn to love at all her points in life. Such amazing chemistry between them.
ALL STAR CAST!!!!
Please you will not regret watching!
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Still a strong favourite 18 years later!
A strong story and a fabulous cast transcend time.I rewatch this drama recently and I'm still blown away by how much I love these characters. I love Go Eun Chan and the actress behind her role. Her acting scenes were spot on. Not many could cry so beautifully and still dressed like a boy.
It's nostalgic and a reminder of a simpler time when mobiles phones and the internet didn't rule our lives.
If you haven't seen this I highly recommend it.
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Cast: 10
The cast is just perfect, they act natural, every one of them fit to their roles! i think the main actress discovered, and she was so so lucky! and we are also lucky by that!, she was a star shining in this drama, you can't even think how perfect she was there because no one can replace and reach to the level of cuteness she where, first- she was a real real tom boy, her act was natural, she was born for this role. i love her so much!!! but only in this drama, why? because after it she became so sad you can't even imagen!!!
this role was so huge that she made it international and than get into so much troubless because she was maybe too naive or sensitive i guess, someone just want her to fall, she couldn't cope, she became a sad person, it's also making me sad because i loved her so much , she like die inside, the light of her heart is just turn off, if you watch her dramas afterword you will understand, she was so huge star that someone just want her to get hurt and rip off her smile and cuteness, every time i think about her i get sad,
Story- 9
Originality not by the plot but the script, the dialogs, very emotional, natural, real!!!\
You know why it's epic?
After this drama nothing came out in this level. nothing!!! it became a desert!
because it's so care free and natural like a glance to their real world and struggles and love so that you feel it's real, and this story almost could happend to anyone, even you, this is the level of this cute drama,
so you feel in love, and you want to hug the charecters and be with them so much.
You can't see this anymore
cons:
the only con i have about this drama (and this is why i gave it 9.5 and not 10)
it's to my opinion was a libiration of the LGBT community, call them to come forward and give them some little joy in their gloomy LGBT community in korea
its gay drama, this is only my thought!!!
the conflict in the drama about being gay it's huge , everything is around this idea, so they take a spin on it and made her a woman dress like a man, but the struggle that someone found out he is gay and need to cope with this - cover up later- so if you are gay it's ok because she is a woman
what i like about this is that they light this idea of struggle and show how hard it is and there's no bounderies of love...
but still at the end they cover up...
Music 10
i swaer this k unforgetiable ost, i'm crying from thinking about how real music was there...it was so srong because it's like they take young artists and gave them a stage, it's not the usuall kpop, it was more rock and indie, so it was so so great and epic that since then nothing !!! again...no bands in those kdrama, no more!!!
those indie band was the corner of the corner in SK, they are srtist you just don't hear in the dramas..and also it's again one of the pain that they are going thtough, by not giving them a voice any more,
You will watch it 50-100 times a gain because there's nothin else!!!
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This review may contain spoilers
Good drama
Overall, a good drama.Personally, I would have liked to see SFL struggle more to get back SML (actaully, to be honest I would have very much preferred him to look at other options and conclude the obvious, namelythat he could do better than someone that would treat him as she did, deceiving him for more than a year, disappearing for two years without a word, and then have the gall to ask him to get back together after she broke up with the guy she cheated with... and he could do better with anyone else, or even by himself) or at least a stronger love triangle where SFL actually faced a challenge. I mean, there was more struggle and uncertainty with the This Week My Wife Is Having An Affair love triangle, and it was basically an afterthought. I wished that SML had channeled Astrid from the ending of the Crazy Rich Asian movie and demonstrated he had a little spine, self dignity and self respect.
The fact is, SFL doesn't really have to face the consequences of her actions, because such consequences are a token resistence that crumbles basically in their first meeting, then he takes her back. And that happens in the first episodes, after which she is no longer the one that chases after him and tries to get back together, he is the one that chases after her, from going to her apartment after their first intimate encounter to literally begging her not to run off with DK, the man she had cheated with, once again. This is insane. Even in something completely ludicrous, where FL should have definitely not taken him back, like World of the Married, the cheating partner has to go through more hoops in order to get a new chance, while here, absurdly, its the SML that runs after her anyway and tries to convince her to stay, after basically folding immediately when she asked him to take her back, despite the pain and betrayal she had put through -what he had to put up with was orders of magnitude worse, she just walzes back in his life after more than one year of cheating and two years off with her lover... I mean, they don't even discuss why she is back: did she have a change of heart, and if then why? Did the relationship just not pan out and so he is the backup? Did DK cheat on her with the briefly mentioned model? One really is forced to try to convince themselves of the first option based on what little evidence the show provides, and the "why is she back" bit is barely touched on-.
I mean, compare this with the hoops the SFL in Backstreet Rookie has to go through, after merely kissing another guy and briefly leaving: there we at least see the reason she is back, we see that she finally learned to appreciate ML (and she never really loved the other guy, anyway) and before she didn't realize how committed the latter was to her, and she goes back (and never really gets a chance). Here we don't know why she is back (did things not pan out and he is the fallback? Or did she suddenly realize she really loved him? But she said she loved DK when she run off with him, and seemed to know all along how much HS loved her and how she was his entire world, so it's not as if she knows anything more about him than when she intentionally deceived him for more than a year while seeing DK behind his back, and run off with DK for two years without saying another word to HS... I really would have liked to be given a reason beyond her saying that she wants to get back together).
This is exemplified by the flippant way his concerns around DK are dismissed/made fun of. He tries to play it cool, but is disturbed that she is still talking with the guy (and meeting up one on one, with a creepily intimate vibe and her giving clever replies and not really putting the foot down and drawing boundaries, when he is still trying to win her back). I would have been okay with saying that his advances were inappropriate and she was going to walk away if he didn't stop hitting on her (she banters with him and makes clever comebacks, frankly it was more like flirting, and I would say that she was at least indulging his flirting if not partecipating -by the end, definitely participating and stringing him along to make HS jealous, which given DK was the guy she cheated with for a year was simply insanely disrespectful, though I liked the jealousy on *her* part, high time she understood she couldn't take him for granted, though unfortunately in practice she could safely take him for granted and he was back to begging and grovelling in two seconds flat-), though I would have very much preferred if she had shown some consideration for HS's obvious insecurities and understood that this was a bad idea in the first place.
Here we are not talking about indulging or pandering to some irrational jealousy. The key point here is that no, her being with HS is not enough to reassure him that he is the one she had chosen, because prior to that, while they were together, she cheated on HS with DK for more than a year, so clearly her being with HS was insufficient to assume she wouldn't cross any boundaries in the past: it would have been a completely different situation had she decided to break things off with HS and then purse a relationship with DK, in that case it would have hurt, but he could have at least trusted that if she had developed feelings for someone else she would talk to him about it and not double time him. He simply cannot make that assumption, because she has shown herself to be the kind of person that would keep her foot in two shoes and lie to his face for more than a year (for that matter, I was about to say "chose him over DK", but it's not clear whether this was because she relized she loved him and not DK, or because DK cheated on her with the underwear model, or she broke up because of something else DK did, so it's not clear that the "choice" is not a convenient fallback... I chose to go with the first option because the alternatives would be even more unpalatable and even more taking him for granted).
Given that betrayal and the fact that DK is still trying to get back with her, this is not simply mantaining a friendly relationship with an ex-bf, it's not a separate matter. And if HS feels that he has to keep his mouth shut about his feelings to be able to stay with her, and when he tries to express them he is not taken seriously, there is a problem. If YJ has no idea that HS would be bothered by her taking calls from the man she had been seeing behind his back for more than a year and agree to one-on-one meetings and lunch, then she would be completely insensitive. I was about to say that nobody could have expected him to be relaxed about that that quickly, but that was before knowing of the betrayal and about YJ using DK to make HS jealous... after knowing that, I would switch that quickly to ever, and say that the phrase is validated, because nobody did expect that, and in particular she did not: she knows perfectly well how HS truly feels about DK. When he comments on him wanting her back because she is a talented artist, she says it's a surprise to hear him say something nice about the guy (considering he had been seeing his gf behind his back for more than a year and she run off with him for two, what a surprise). And later on she exploits the pain he felt with regards to DK to remind him that she had lived with the guy in their NY house and he still has feelings for her, and she might be starting to reciprocate, to make him jealous, before outright telling him that she is going back to him.
To be honest, if we were to speak about practical advice I would give someone in HS's situation, it would be to run for the hills and choose anyone else (or nobody and stay single). A perfect life of two rich artistic guys with nice houses, the dream life/couple? And YJ and HS being even more unhappy than FL? Well, in reality I would say that HS was the only miserable one, and he had perfectly good reasons to be: that completely ignores the fact that there is more to life than money and YJ betrayed HS, while nobody stabbed FL in the back in such a manner. Her knowing him so well as to share something like the little foot fetish and choosing to lie to his face for more than a year, knowing full well about how much he loved her and trusted her, and self servingly exploiting and breaking that trust, and then running off for two without a word, and later exploiting knowing which buttons to push to hurt him with his insecurities regardind DK... it all makes her actions all the more damning (in Backstreet Rookie at least SFL was confused about ML's commitment to her and didn't realize how much he had sacrificed for her, here she knew all about his feelings and took him for granted, deceiving him anyway and then later intentionally using DK to hurt him).
I would have liked to see a real triangle, for HS to have had other actual relationships and given it a real try. It just seems mightily unfair that he would wait for her for years and not have the chance to truly explore and discover whether someone else could make him happy... with him being strong armed and pressured into a decision and not having any experience with a relatioship with any other girl, I really cannot say he is making an informed decision (and in fact imho anyone else would have been a better choice, given that they had not betrayed him in such a horrific manner, in fact staying alone would have been preferable). More than that, that way YJ would have had to actually do some work to win HS back, while this way she essentially just shows up and asks. One cannot even talk about her evolving: she still thinks that it's okay for someone to stab people in the back to get what they want (she tells ML that had he really been interested her being his cousin's gf wouldn't have mattered and he would have tried to steal her away for real... as if people simply acted on their impulses with no consideration for the fact that they are hurting people that they don't know and never did anything to them, or people they know and care about, and getting what they wanted by any means necessary is the only thing that matters... would have liked to see how she would have felt like had she been on the receiving end of such a life philosophy and had someone really been trying to take HS away from her, rather than it being HS's one sided crush... this is simply basic golden rule stuff, treat others like you want to be treated, and people being able to separate their emotions from whether pursuing someone is a good idea and wouldn't want to come between two people in an established relationship, and I would have liked ML to push back on her hogwash and restate that no, as he told his gf, the fact that he is HS's cousin mattered, he is not a sociopath that is completely self serving and does not mind stabbing people -in this case family he cares about- in the back in the pursue of his goals... though his flirting was still inappropriate -it was not clear to me that HS truly didn't mind when he put his head in YJ's lap, but it's something ML should have wondered about, though maybe it's something he did, and in fact he did seem aware of the fact that he and his flirting were not being taken seriously- and I appreciated FL calling him out on it), she just decided for some reason that now she does not want DK anymore and wants HS again.
It's not clear to me that he can expect this not to happen in the future, and to be completely honest I guess that nobody can guarantee not to fall out of love with someone and in love with someone else, and in such a case it would be perfectly fine to be upfront and honest about it and break things off, the worry is whether she would be like last time and deceive him for more than a year: to be clear, had she simply dumped him and run off for two years, while unpleasant for HS, I wouldn't have had a problem with it, because she would have been honest and really the only alternative if she was in love with DK and not with HS would have been what she chose, namely lying to HS' face for more than a year. If she still thinks that what she wants is all that matters and she can stab the people she loves in the back to get it (as she implied when talking to ML about his crush on her), then with that mentality it's not clear that she wouldn't lie to HS again if a similar situation to the one with DK arose in the future, maybe being in DK's shoes this time around and hurting someone else as well, like she suggested ML to hurt his cousin by pursuing his girlfriend for real. The notion that one might think that despite one's feelings and emotions and what they want/wish for, there are other considerations, and they don't want to be the type of person that would come between two people in an established relationship, or be willing, in order to get what they want, to unfairly treat someone they didn't know and that never did anything to them, or stab a family member and someone he cares about in the back, as if wanting something or someone is a free pass, a get out of jail free card, and merely desiring something or someone wsa a universal justification in and of itself. Again, the double standard of thinking that this is all perfectly okay if she does it to someone else, but it's not if even much less is done to her. That's the reason I would have liked her to have some real competition, rather than simply someone that had no interest in coming between her and her boyfriend and was completely unthreatening.
It's absurd that she doesn't have to do anything to win the person she deceived for more than a year back other than show up and ask, and he is the one that needs to beg her to stay, again. Once again, it's not her fighting to get him back, it's him fighting to get her to stay -and, after putting up with more than a year of betrayals, he needs to beg her not to run off to the lover she cheated on him with *again*, when she was the one that asked him to take her back? After more than a year of lies and running off for two years without a word, she gets to come back into his life just by asking once and barely saying sorry, and he has to grovel and beg her not to leave him again for the man she had cheated with?-. I simply find it absurd that she basically didn't need to face any challenge to get him back, she just had to show up and ask twice.
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Nice drama
A good story with excellent music.On YJ, I must say that I enjoyed her jealousy, but it's telling that neither when she first came back asking to get back together with HS, nor later, she ever tried to fight for him or give him any reason to chose her. Basically, she just showed up, and he took her back. She didn't have to work to convince him to take her back, she didn't have to make any positive case (not that there is any reason he shouldn't prefer basically anyone else, or even no one and just remain single). She gets him back by just showing up and barely apologising (but he had already taken her in the house by that point), and then by threatening to leave him to get back with the very person she had cheated on him with, and for some reason this outrageously manipulative behaviour pushes him to grovel and beg her rather than pushing him away.
Again, it was good that she was jealous because at least it meant she cared. But she never fought for him, or made any sacrifice (not sure this is the right word, because we would be talking about giving up something of lesser value for something she values more, and I would say that technically speaking that wouldn't be a sacrifice) or gave up anything of any importance or even risked anything, while he was willing to wait for her despite nothing indicating that she would ever come back, and I would say that he gave up any semblance of self respect by groveling in response to her toxic attempt to strong arm him into begging her to stay.
In other words, speaking technically, I would say that she did no "costly signaling" whatsoever. She showed up and asked to get back together and barely apologized. She never fought for him. He was the one that came back to her after their first intimate encounter. He was the one that asked to have a vacation to reconnect, and then groveled and begged her to stay when she threatened to leave. She just shoved up, did absolutely nothing to fight to get him back, or give him a reason to, and succeeded by just showing up and then threatening to leave him for the man she had cheated him with, forcing him to beg her to stay and even giving him a scare when she decided at the last minute that after all, given he had groveled and begged for her to stay, she would.
What I wish she had done was yes, being jealous, but then follow it up with the natural next thought, namely an acknowledgment that what she had done to him, by lying to his face for more than a year when he knew, was billions of time worse than anything she had had to ever endure -frankly, I was amazed to see her brush aside him mentioning her more than one year long betrayal when she brought it up and *still* only caring about herself and what she felt, without any acknowledgment of his pain-.
I would have liked her to acknowledge that fact, how hurt, humiliated, disappointed, betrayed, tortured he must have felt putting up with it for a year, and begging her to stay even after all that. I would have liked her to acknowledge that she had done that to him while he trusted in her completely and had eyes only for her, while what she experienced came on the back of her atrocious more than year long betrayal and two year of absence without a single word, and, frankly, a new relationship where she did exactly nothing to rebuild trust (if that was even possible, which imho it was not, not that HS or the show even required her to), but instead continued to flirt and even talk on the phone and meet up one on one and have lunch with the very man that she had been seeing for more than a year behind HS's back, and that still has feelings for her. This prompted him to talk about his insecurities with FL and even in part, semi-subconsciously, played a part in him inviting her to the exhibition in the first place. I would have liked for YJ to make HS feel safe to share his insecurities about DK, which she knew about anyway given that she exploited them to make him jealous and then to threaten him into beg her to stay, least she went back to DK, rather than mocking him for them -even after his outburst at her more than year long betrayal, which left her unfazed and didn't prompt any reflection on how he must have felt, and that she mocked him for later on, with him having to play along, while she exploited those very same insecurities to make him jealous and then threaten him to beg her to stay unless he wanted her to go back to the man she cheated on him with-.
I mean, it's obvious that HS is deeply scarred by the betrayal, one can see it in the way he asks FL to hide the kiss from his cousin, even if he says he doesn't mind. Now, I think that this is selling his cousin short (and they were not even together at the time, not to mention FL didn't reciprocate it). But it's also very worrisome from the perspective of his mental health that he seems to be at a point where delusion and putting his head in the sand seem preferable to knowing the truth about the kind of person you are choosing to live your life with. The kind of person that would humiliate and deceive him, lying to his face for more than a year, without a shred of loyalty, respect or honesty, is a very different kind of person from someone that would find the idea utterly repulsive. The kind of person that would treat him with respect and honesty and have a clean breakup with was the kind of person that he was in love with and that turned out to live only in his mind, while the real person turned out to be someone very much cabale of looking someone they have been with for nine years in the face and tell him they were going to work while meeting DK behind their back, and do this again day after day for more than a year. This matters, if you are in a relationship with someone and you don't know this critical piece of information you are not really in a relationship with them, but with a figment of your imagination, someone very different from the real person, and we should want to have a relatioship with a real person, not with a delusional fantasy we constructed. In the case of ML and FL, this doesn't really apply, given that she was kissed but didn't reciprocate, so it says nothing about her, and it happened before she was in a relationship with ML, who was in any case a playboy that was trying to semi-seriously/half-jockingly get in YJ's pants anyway, and so would have had no reason to complain.
Bottom line, in any case, good that she was jealous. Bad that she didn't acknowledge how she had done a billion times worse and HS would have been made to feel a billion times worse, and her deception went on for more than a year before she finally left him and run off with her lover for two years, not even when he pointed it out to them (she brushed it aside on the side of the street on their way to the airport, and mocked him for it later on... obviously we know about his insecurities and it's not really a joke, like her telling him not to get too close to FL was not really a joke in the previous episodes). Bad that she never does anything to fight for him or give him any reason to choose her (if someone shoved up after more than a year of lies and two years with no words while she run off with her lover, and told me they had broken up and she wanted to get back with me, and later on followed that up with trying to make me jealous of someone she had cheated on me with for more than a year, talking about the house they lived together in in NY, and ultimately outright telling me that said person they cheated on me with still had feeling for them, they were starting to reciprocate and wanted to run back to them unless I groveled and begged them to stay, and almost doing it anyway when I did, only to disappear... well, that would be a hard pass for me, thanks but no thanks, next).
I am ambivalent about using DK to make HS jealous.
On one hand I think that it was worse when she got together with HS and continue to talk to DK on the phone and meet up one on one and have lunch together, while he was still smitten with her and trying to get her to come back to him, indulging his flirting and bantering with him, letting him caress her head in a manner that seemed pretty intimate, walking shoeless on the grass while he was talking about wanting to make an impression on her, all in all building up to an overall atmosphere and vibe that was decidedly ambiguous, rather than putting a hard stop and setting down boundaries, while fully knowing that HS was bothered by DK, and for very good reasons, given that she had been seeing this man dfor over a year while she was still with HS, lying to his face about going to work, so this is not a matter of a sassy and open person very comfortable with her ex that has a solid relationship with very good trust with HS, based on a foundation of honesty and respect, but rather of someone that saw this very person, DK, behind HS's back for more than a year and lied to his face about him, then run off with DK for two years, and had just gotten back to HS, for which, as she well knows despite him trying to play it cool, DK is still a sore spot -otherwise she wouldn't be trying to use him to make him jealous or threaten to leave him for DK-.
I consider these talks and meetings worse because they signaled a fundamental lack of care: she knew that HS was bothered by them, and had very reasonable insecurities born as a result of her own action (which included lying to him for more than a year while seeing DK behind his back); she knew that DK was smitten with her; she should have been fighting to rebuild trust (not that I think it would have been possible, and not that the show required her to, given that HS took her back immediately), instead she basically ignored -when not outright mocked and made light of- HS's insecurities, only to later exploit them to manipulate and threaten him.
This to me is maybe worse than the outright manipulation, because it signals that she takes HS for granted, knows of his insecurities, and instead of taking them seriously, even if she disagrees, she mocks them or simply ignores them, basically not caring about his discomfort, which she weaponized later to make him jealous. So, this signals "you are going to be with me anyway, so I don't have to care about your insecurities, forcing you to pretend to be okay while knowing you are not, and making fun of them if you bring them up, only to exploit them to make you jealous and threaten to leave you with the man I cheated on you with for a year if you don't beg me to stay", basically making it abundantly clear that yes, she knew very well what she was doing and the effect on HS.
In some respect, one could say that using DK to make HS jealous was crueler because it was done explicitly for that purpose, but I would argue that knowing of his insecurities and simply not caring, after she was the one that asked to get back with him despite her more than year long betrayal and two years she run off with her lover without a word, was simply worse, because it signals a taking him for granted, and a lack of care.
In fact, I would say that while I would have much preferred if she actually fought for HS instead of tormenting him with DK and threatening him to leave him for the man she had cheated with, again, at least she is trying to make him jealous because she is jealous herself, so she is no longer taking him for granted, plus she is exploiting DK's feelings for her own ends, and after witnessing the infuriating spectacle of seeing DK treat HS as someone that he couldn't even remember how many times he had met, and having the gall to talk about a project, while being someone that had been seeing his girlfriend behind his back for more than a year... you cannot get more disrespectful than that, the hypocrisy was infuriating. Given the fact that he had been seeing YJ behind HS's back for more than a year, I feel very little simpathy for his complaint about being used by her -serves him right, not sure where he gets the idea that it's atrocious for him to be used in such a manner when he is willing to walk all over others, such as HS, to get what he wants, if he cannot see the sliver of poetic justice there I sure can smell karma-.
It was still cruelly sadistic and utterly insane, and something that would have repulsed me and made me run away, more than anything else, and for her to threaten to run back to DH if HS didn't grovel and beg her to stay, and almost doing it, only to then disappear, was even worse -and in as much as she was really intentioned to get back to DK, which she ultimately didn't, if HS wouldn't comply with her demands, you loose all the upside of trying to make him jealous in an attempt to make HS stay with her: here she is leaving becaus she prefers to hurt him than to risk having her pride bruised if he ever chosese to leave her, that's not really something that could in a roundabout way be seen as a manipulative and messed up way to persuade HS to choose her so that they could stay together, quite the opposite, it's threatening to leave him for DK if he doesn't bend the knee-.
What was definitely missing was her fighting for HS. She didn't fight to get back with him, nor did she really struggle or do anything to mend the damage she caused and rebuild broken trust. She took HS utterly for granted, and ignored his concerns and insecurities -which she knew and later exploited, so there is no pretence that she was unaware of them-, mocking them when he brought them up and forcing him to pretend he was cool with everything, while asking him to be hyper aware of hers, the standard being that he would have to never be even remotely attracted to anyone else, while he had put up with more than a year of deception and her running away with DK, which she acknowledges she loved at the time, while he stood there waiting for her.
It feels incredible, but she didn't have to do anything besides showing up (she barely uttered half an apology after he was more or less hooked), he put up a tiny amount of token resistence, and then he was the one chasing her, never the reverse, starting from after their first intimate encounter up until he was groveling and begging her to stay. He was the only one doing the chasing, groveling and begging, she never even fought for HS and did nothing to keep him. It was utterly one sided, and even after breaking up with DK, they had more of a love triangle there than HS ever did with FL -because DK actually had feelings for YJ and the threat of getting back to him was a realistic one-. So she pushes him to compete with DK for her affection by manipulating him into groveling and begging, and even that is only barely enough -and she disappears anyway for a time-. But she never goes through even a iota of the effort for HS's sake, in fact all she has to do to get him to take her back is show up and ask, and then threaten to leave him again for the man she cheated with, unless HS grovels and begs her to stay.
Really, I would have been contented to see her make any effort at all to fight for HS, to acknowledge his insecurities and take them seriously, to acknowledge the pain and humiliation and betrayal she put him through, which were much worse than anything she went through, and to rebuild trust (impossible in reality, was not even required in this fic via kdrama magic). Any self awareness whatsoever, please. And action, her doing something to address the insecurities and broken trust, a costly signal or any signal at all, really, something to indicate that she is willing to fight for HS (maybe him having a real affair with someone that reciprocated would have helped to prompt more of an effort, not that it should have been needed if he was not so ready to take her back anyway and she actually had to work for it and put some effort into it besides merely existing).
It's false that she was self reflective and acknowledged her faults. She lied about why she was leaving, later admitting she did it because couldn't stand he might be the one to leave her. She brushed over the more than one year of betrayal. Sure, she admitted once with ML that she was self centered and unfair, in the past and now, but didn't even acknowledge that what she had put HS through had been billion of times worst (nor did she mention her manipulation, or the usage of DK to make HS jealous, to HS). And in any case, merely saying it and doing absolutely nothing about it counts for nothing. Okay, it's less hypocritical than the alternative (and he had her moments of lies and hypocrisy, as indicated by the aforementioned justification for leaving, or even her starting to reciprocate DK's feeling, and certainly the double standard where she makes a big deal only of her feelings, while not acknowledging in the next line the much worse emotional trauma she had caused HS, and the disparity between what she gave him and what she was asking of him, is maybe being honest about being a hypocrite and having two weights and two measures), and spares us the time to argue about her being completely self serving, self entitled and self absorbed, and that she is, again, hurting HS and not giving an inch while he is trying his best, and endured much more she ever did, waited for her for years and took her back despite everything she had put him through, since she is acknowledging it... but then, if this is not followed by any action and she does not change her behaviour, what does it count for? Nothing, absolutely nothing. Empty words, as empty as her half uttered apology when HS took her back, not followed up by any action. She took more than she ever gave in return, and never fought for HS, never worked for, endured, struggled to get back with him, just showed up and asked, and then reduced him to a groveling, begging mess by threatening to leave him for the man she had cheated with.
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Overall, a nice drama
Overall, this was a nice drama. I liked some things and disliked others (your mileage may vary, some fringe takes I consider absolutely crazy, but I am more or less aligned with the general sentiment).I think that most other reviews nail down the strengths pretty well. In terms of the pet peeves, one thing I didn't like was the treatment of the topic of betrayal. In My Mister there was a great line that talked about how in kdramas betrayal is treated flippantly or romanticized, and you don't see the true effects, or they are swept under the rug when you need to move the story forward, and My Mister was a perfect example of a show that didn't do that at all, not shying away from the pain and long term consequences of the affair, with flashbacks and DH's imagining his wife being intimate with her lover.
I feel that My Wife Is Having An Affair This Week was an example of the above mentioned flippancy, in that there are some scenes where the anguish is shown, but for the sake of the plot they move past it when convenient, and someone who couldn't even touch her without thinking of her with her lover suddenly has his trauma healed because of what, a decision? The power of love? If one could simply chose to get past that trauma and rebuild trust that manner, they wouldn't have needed to divorce and people wouldn't need therapy and counselling. Healing and rebuilding trust are not easy, they don't happen on command, and some times they don't happen at all (and some time, it's appropriate for them not to happen: if somebody was factually speaking disloyal and betrayed your trust, they have shown themselves to be unworthy of your trust, and if you didn't believe them capable of that, you should realize that the object of your affection didn't exist outside your head and the real person is quite different).
In a review of Crazy, Stupid Love, a commentator had written that it was fundamentally fake, phony, dishonest, in that it does not show the true pain one goes through, the trauma, the broken trust, there is no effect on surrounding relationships and no therapy and marriage counsellor, and trying to move past the pain and failing to do so, etc. My Wife Is Having An Affair This Week used the flashback/image with the lover only when he embraced his wife, not before, which was unrealistic, and even that was shown only once and in a tame manner.
Coffee Prince is that way: for some reason, despite having lived through the hell of YJ having an affair with DK for more than a year and lying to his face about working while she was with him, and leaving him for two years despite him begging not to, he continues to pine after her and remembers only the good times. No flashbacks to the pain and anguish of discovering her betrayal and choosing to forgive her day after day for more than a year, no imagining her with her lover, etc. Some times at the beginning and the time where he confessed to have known of the affair at the side of the road were the only two times where his anguish was manifested, then it was brushed aside and we saw someone who didn't act as if he was carrying trauma commesurate with the hell he was put through. No comparable trust issue, him joking and playing along when she makes light of the betrayal and him being the victim that took her back, and feeling his pride hurt by mentions of DK, who he hates. After the scene in the car and all the pain that showed up? After she used a man she cheated on him with for more than a year and abandoned him, and recently used to make him jealous, threatening to leave him to DK? When he felt he couldn't even open up to her about not feeling comfortable with DK's presence when she phoned the guy and met/had lunch with him one on one?
Frankly, I wonder if the writer's intentions was to make it appear as if she had merely dumped him, because what I saw, him being uncomfortable with DK but pretending he was cool with it with YJ, even shaking the guy's hand as if he didn't know she had been seeing him behind his back for more than a year while they were together, or him appearing uncomfortable with her indulging/flirting with his cousin (when he saw him with his head in her lap)... I thought he was insecure because of the abandonment, but that she knew the line and wouldn't betray his trust, and would talk and be honest with him, but her having carried on a full blown affair for more than a year puts every of these actions in a quite different light.
Frankly, I don't understand how anyone could consider her not self entitled and self centered, selfish and manipulative. She uses DK, who has feelings for her, to make her bf jealous, teasing him about the fact they lived together, knowing the immense pain she had caused him, that he had tolerated her more than year long affair and lies, and begged her to stay, while she abandoned him, only to come back when the relationship with DK didn't pan out (maybe because of the underwear model she mentions?), and picking him up like a pair of old shoes, fully expecting him to be there waiting for her -you cannot take one any more for granted than that-. He takes her back almost immediately, with barely an apology, and she doesn't do anything at all to regain his trust -on the contrary, she still keeps in contact with DK and meets up with him (both with him and his cousin the touchy/feeling part was rather ambiguous, because while his cousin might never come between them, with DK she did have a more than year long affair and lived for two years, so him caressing her, and her letting him, has a whole other meaning). She doesn't set any boundary, either physical or otherwise, despite being aware of it potentially upsetting someone she betrayed for more than a year and abandoned for two, and whose trust she is supposed to rebuild: she asks him whether he is okay with his cousin's flirting and DK, which means she is aware enough to understand that it's something she should probably stop indulging, even if he pretends he is. Just minimal care and consideration for his point of view. For that matter, she herself admits that she is the selfish one, and even just using her ex bf to hurt/make jealous the man she had cheated on with said ex bf means manipulating both.
HS being painted as selfish and manipulative is ludicrous by comparison, which, again, the drama acknowledges. I mean, he put up with her betrayal for more than a year, and took her back basically immediately, and didn't even feel able to be open enough to talk about DK, pretending he was okay while she, being completely inconsiderate, didn't do a single thing to gain back his trust. Him inviting a female friend at the show, in part because she wanted to go, in part as a maybe partially subconscious desire to make YJ not even "jealous", but aware of the fact that she is taking him very much for granted, in response to the DK thing, while not knowing of FL's feelings for him, or his subsequent little one sided mini-crush and small kiss, in no way can be placed on the same plane as her lying to his face for more than a year while seeing DK while she was telling him she was working, and running off with the guy for other two. He was more reactive (meaning that he responded to YJ's actions) and aphazard than calculative or intentionally manipulative. She was very much not: she intentionally deceived him for a year, and used the feelings of the guy she cheated on him with to make his jealous, manipulating both of them (well, for DK I feel little pity, given he was willing to have a more than year long affair with her and then shakes the guy's hands and proposes a project as if nothing had happened). He sleeps with her because he loves her, and then tries to "take it back" because he feels that he has no self respect and self dignity (and yes, he was a chump). He is baffled, rightly, by the fact that his subsequent rejection doesn't phase her, while he was utterly destroyed when she left him. Theirs is not an equal relationship, either in terms of what they did to each other, and in terms of commitment, and he keenly feels that.
To "two wrongs don't make one right", I would reply banality with banality with "turnabout is fair play" or "you reap what you sow", and then challenge the notion that him seeing someone else would be "wrong". In my eyes, you don't owe respect, honesty and loyalty to someone that didn't show you any, and I was 100% in approval of the wives and gfs in shows such as A Good Lawyer's Wife and The Magicians sleeping with other man -their cheating spouses had no right to complain-.
Again, some empaty with someone that was put through unbearable emotional abuse by the traumatic experience of his girlfriend of nine years lying to his face for more than one year, having to beg her and her then picking up and leaving him for two years, and expecting she had any right to come back in his life and get back together with him since she and DK had broken up... self entitlement and taking him for granted to the n-th power. Also some sense of proportions. We are talking about a one sided mini-crush and an unreciprocated small kiss, versus deceiving someone for more than a year and spitting on nine years together, then ignoring his begging to run away with her lover and showing up after two years with barely an apology, while continuing to flirt and continuing to talk and meet up with the man she cheated with in a creepily ambiguous atmosphere, knowing he still had feelings for her.
I saw someone claim that YJ was "mature" and used her femininity to choose her sexual partner and her career. This is hogwash: in terms of the career, she advanced through her talent, not by sleeping with DK, and suggesting the contrary seems to me to be more insulting than an example of female empowerment (on the contrary, it mirrors the sexist trope of the actress sleeping with the guy financing her work to advance her career), as for choosing sexual partners, that's simply factually hogwash as well: in the modern world people freely choose their sexual partners -nobody in the show was in an arranged marriage, afaik- with or without femininity, case in point FL doing so while pretending to be a man. Bottom line, she made her way in the world (male dominated or not -frankly, as a solo artist one struggles to understand why the artistic circle would be more horrible in that respect than a lot of other places, and she just needs to produce good art, not to convince anyone to hire her or not suppress her on the job... and the implication that she would have slept with DK to get ahead makes this take insulting, not an example of female empowerment, so I am baffled at the idea of it being presented in that light, when it would have been the exact opposite: surely, the correct take and the most respectful one of her as a person and a female artist, is to believe that she used her talent and rather than bank on her femininity and sexuality to get ahead) through her talent.
As for "maturity", we are talking about someone that freely admitted to being unfair and selfish but did nothing to change her behavior, that drunk while pregnant, and showed no consideration for the feelings of someone she ghosted for two years after a year long affair, flirting, talking with and having 1-to-1 with her ex she had cheated on her bf with, etc., while doing absolutely nothing to rebuild the trust she had so completely broken. She used her ex, who still had feelings for her, to tease and make jealous, and hurt, the bf she had cheated on with said ex, talking about the house they shared in NY and threatening to leave him for DK and that he loved her and she might start to love him back again. Mature? I think not.
Another person said that artistic circles, particularly public facing ones, make it inevitable YJ cheating and running off while HS was a hermit living outside of town while she was a famous artist in the spotlight. I think that this generalization of artists being unfaithful and untrustworthy, or even particularly promiscuous, doesn't hold water (as any generalization about any group of people, gender, race, religion, etc.). It's in any case not a rockstar with groupies situation, and in SK afaik public figures are expected to be pretty spotless. In addition to that, it's simply false that she was famous when she begun the affair: as her lover said, she was pretty unknown at the time. Plus nobody else in the field seems particularly disloyal or even promiscuous, and if anything it's her bf, not her, that worked with other people (she also does, but she is mainly a solo artist), and he does work in the city -like many rich and famous people who are not hermits, he lives outside of town, a perfectly normal thing to do and not an indication of being socially isolated: he has a car-. And she herself said that she run off with DK because she loved him, not because she was a small girl in a bigger world and thought she could upgrade her bf with a rich fop. HS also had plenty of occasions to cheat -not a hermit-, he simply was in love with her and didn't even drink coffee with any of them-.
Someone said that she was the most self aware and admitted her flaws... that's not really correct, she gaslighted and pressured her bf and gave him no space, leaving and making it seem as if it was to give him freedom, while as she later admitted she just wanted to have her pride hurt if he left her. And in any case, admitting that her bf was selfless and forgave her more than year long cheating, and took her back after she dropped him like a pair of old shoes and then came back demanding to be his gf again, and to be selfish and inconsiderate herself, but doing nothing at all to change or even attempt to rebuild the trust she shattered.
She literally just had to show up and not to abandon him again despite his begging, and only when she was at the airport she realized that she was seeing the mote in one's brother's eye but not the beam in one's own, and that if we were keeping score in terms of the damage she did they were at a billion to one. In general, if you acknowledge you are an a-hole and don't do anything to change, you are still an a-hole. I cannot even say "at least she is not a hypocrite" with confidence. I mean, in one sense she was not, but in another sense, she held her bf to a much, much higher standard than she held herself, and was not willing to extend him the same grace: a blatant double standard. She could take him to task about FL before he even kissed her, but he couldn't be confident to talk to her about DK and had to pretend everything was fine?
She also doesn't get any props for not being jealous of FL, because the latter was not interested in her boyfriend and she was never a threat, while she had a more than year long affair with DK and abandoned her begging bf for him, only to come back two years later when that relationship didn't pan out. The situation with the FL is exactly the same as the bit with his cousin, in that they are not a threat (and the flirting with the cousin and leading him on was something that went on for years).
I found the banter at the end disturbing: the way she minimized and talked flippantly about him being the victim of her betrayal (which lasted more than one year, after which she ran away for two, and came buck asking to be his gf while keeping contact with her ex lover she had cheated on her bf with, talking with him on the phone and meeting up one-on-one while letting some quite creepy/ambiguous touching happen: in some way worse than indulging/flirting with the cousin, given that the latter would never come between them, but DK did come between her and her bf and she cheated on and abandoned the latter with him), and about being self conscious about DK and having his pride hurt (legitimate, among other things... also the broken trust and relationship... let's not forget she threatened to leave him for DK because her pride wouldn't take him leaving her). Considering the fact that he knew of the more than year long affair and she run away from him while he begged her to stay, leaving for two years, and she is still in contact with him, talking and meeting up one-on-one when DK still had feelings for her, and he was not comfortable telling her about it, but had to pretend that he was okay with it... are we sure he should be mocked for opening up about the fact he hates the guy? Particularly considering the pain he expressed just recently when he brought up the cheating at the side of the road to the airport, and the fact that she used DK to make him jealous and threatened to leave with him, saying he had feelings for her and she might also start to reciprocate again. It's clear that this is "joking" like the joking they did about his budding feelings for FL, meaning that it's not really joking, but she treats her past betrayal, and almost-leaving with DK, in a completely flippant manner.
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