You're Beautiful

Perfect

I know I'm late on this, but wow...after watching, this is by far my favorite kdrama yet. I loved every single character, every one of them. I like that none of the relationships felt forced or thrown in, everything just felt organic and real. I honestly don't even know how I'd never even heard of this one before and I'm pretty sad I missed out on it for so many years. Without giving anything away, I'll just say the way they wrapped it up was satisfying enough that it didn't need more but definitely left you wanting more. I know there are other versions, but the casting for this was so perfect I really can't see the others having even close to the same feel. I also want to throw in that I was having major gender envy the entire time, the main character really did pull off both better than I thought she would.

Read More

Recommended for sheer joy. 2009, 16 eps at 1hr ea. The Hong sisters 5th show, not a big hit on local tv, blew up in popularity on contemporaneous Japanese tv and thereafter online.

This is has been a cult show for years. Smooth as silk kdrama, laughter and tears regularly provided. Essentially a teen love story about a teen band, mostly situated in their "dorm", an utter pop 60's fantasy piece of architecture, but all organic curves (what is this building??).

First hook-- a separated-twin story and a twin-masquerade story (in the West, 12th Night and The Menaechmi likewise floated to the frothy top of their respective cultural scenes).) The opening scenes have a mediterranean feel, is it the "technicoloring", the nun costumes , the naked marble statues or the scooter jokes? Thereafter the show is about the emotional interactions of a small cast. So deceptively simple.

Second hook -- missing parents and other relatives provide the nec. structural mystery, and they and the antagonists swoop in and out of the 2 main sets as if they are making stage entrances. In an HS script, look for what the HS do better, those places where their absolute bravura breaks through; not essentially in original plots or characters , but in how well they do them.

In this production, the use of what is essentially a chorus in ancient classical comedy/tragedy is wonderful. The fangirls who camp outside the company (afterschool?) wail and beat their breasts astoundingly and comment upon the action in silly ways. In the countryside visit the three old women are incredible, not only does their performance have perfect comic rhythm, but HS weaves in references to trot singers and specialized tv shows where the other half of Korea gets its impressions of entertainment. A quick meta to the history of music in SK, in an idol drama!!!

The recognition-of-the-lovers section comes a little later than expected, but when it does the carefully built-up system of metaphors and puns explodes as the characters deploy them in the service of conversations practically in code. The light of the "star" (and awfully, the moon as reflector of it/the sun) versus the light of the sun which blots out the recognition of others, darkness and light, hiding and paying attention, seeing and not seeing, showing and not showing. The ML has night-blindness, oh yes he does. The pleasure of the final tensions being resolved in poetic language is so intensely the HS' territory.

Here is a question, are the Hong sisters basically insanely lucky in casting and directors so that their intelligent, flippant and tightly constructed scripts are thus given that HS stratospheric oomph? You're Beautiful is a show on par with Hwayugi in characters who are almost instantly recognizable after just the 1st episode. I loved Lee Hong Ki there as the unforgettable PK (and his zombie friend Richie!) and I love him here as Jeremy, a character who reflects a prototype love-is-love theme. Jang Geun Suk rises from the ashes of Hong GilDong as a Heathcliff-ian ML.

Park Shin Hye is one of those heroic kdrama actresses who started working at the age of 13 and is still going strong 33 dramas later. Although her trippy little dove-of-christ characterization made my teeth grind, I can believe that that sort of naivete existed somewhere before my own era--nowadays most nuns and novitiates after Vatican II are amazingly truehearted, practical and energetic persons. And of course, PSH's performance is a perfect, absolutely perfect, foil to the comedy (the term 'straight man' in reference to comic pairs is now unusable or I would use it).

ps. I think it is not useful to trace influence in a hectic renaissance time like this one where dramas run only for 2 months, performers and writers work for cheap for companies which have state monies to spend, and where many of the behind the scenes creatives have one of the excellent university degrees in theatre and film available in SK. The consequence of the hurly-burly is that any successful show is instantly imitated piecemeal by competitors looking for that secret sauce. Only those on the scene have any memories of what went into that creative process.

Read More

a great starter

this was one of my first Korean dramas. I remember it aired on a channel that my mom used to watch. it looked interesting so I started watching it with her. I absolutely fell in love with the characters, story, plot- you name it I loved it- Once it ended I remember I didn't watch another drama for months because I refused to move on from it. It's been around 5 years since I've first watched it and since then I've watched it around 6 times. although the main girl didn't end up with who I wanted- it's still very enjoyable. Not to mention the ost is still on my Spotify to this day. I still listen to it all the time and enjoy every second of it. Although it's been over 10 years since it aired, I hope more newcomers watch it.

Read More

Warning this drama gives you second lead syndrome!
Thanks to this drama, I've discovered Young Hwa, and he's now one of my bia wreckers. I'm planning on watching Heartstrings to get over my second male lead syndrome.

The plot is just like any other drama. A female lead and a couple of dudes that's into her. The female lead disguise as a guy and joins a boy band, the boys slowly fall in love with her. The female lead is naive, so the boys always cares about her. But in the end the female lead chooses the least compatible guy. The drama is light hearted and funny. No tissues neceassary.

Acting of female lead was awful. This is one of PSH first dramas shes the lead in, you can definitely tell her acting and emotions has improved a lot through out the drama!

I love the OST for this drama, definitely gonna save their songs to my playlist!

*Edit: Heartstrings isn't on Netflix, I'm so sad :(((((((

Read More

I am reasonably new to K-Dramas, but after watching The Liar and his Lover, I was searching for another K-pop story and stumbled across this one. I was immediately unsure if I'd like it because it was an older show, but I quickly got sucked in by its humor. I found myself laughing when I was meant to, crying when I was meant to feel emotions, and smiling when they planned for me to. I got invested in this show, and even choose my favorite guy in the band, by the end I wasn't sure who I really liked best.. they are all so great and I love them all. Can honestly say I've never felt this way about any K-drama before. Well done.

Read More

If you weren’t in love with Park Shin-Hye before you will after.

I am kind of stuck between an 8.5 and a 9 for this one... since some points make me not quite want to give it a nine but it’s also better than an 8.5... I’ll stick with 9 for now, since in the end I really really enjoyed watching this, despite the few things that bothered me.

Cast:
I have always been quite a fan of Park Shin-Hye which makes me kind of sad I did not watch this sooner, since, to me, this might have been one of her best performances, I have seen so far. She showed so many different facets in this one and nailed each one of them. This Drama is definitely not one you should take 100% seriously, she managed to mix seriousness and believability with fun and entertainment so well. Idk I might have fallen in love with her now.
The rest of the cast was also nice, except for the second female lead’s weird eye thing (which is probably nothing she can control so no shame) everything fit really nice.
I had a few doubts about the male lead at first, since he did not really look the part for me at first, however I really grew to love him, especially since his smile was so extremely beautiful, which made the rare moments when his character smiled a thousand times more special.

Story/characters:
This started off so beautifully entertaining, it had me laughing from the first episode and luckily it kept this humour throughout the entire Drama. The storyline itself is vastly unrealistic, but that was absolutely fine since it fit the Drama perfectly.

I loved how the feelings between the two leads developed, and even though it all progressed rather slowly I did not get bored and for the most part it did not feel stretched at all. There were so many cute moments.

We had our typical Drama, caused by the typical reasons, however I did not feel as frustrated with it all as I did in other Dramas, since the characters reacted to the Drama quite reasonable/well (under the circumstances), I did not feel like crashing my head into a wall.
There was a good amount of evil, however not an inhuman amount.

The only thing that I did not like story wise was the ending and the episodes leading up to it. To me that part felt a little too stretched, especially in comparison to how short the ending was. It would have been fine if they’d added one more episode showing what happens after, to give us some time to enjoy the couple and their happiness. This is the main reason I have deducted one point from my rating. The other reason is that there we’re some small scenes that weren’t quite logical (In terms of consistency within the storyline).

I also want to point out how much I loved every single character in this Drama. We had so many different characters that had so many different sides to them, I absolutely loved it. I will point out my personal favourite which is one of the male side characters, his character literally felt like you took a person from the real world and stuck him into the Drama. If Drama characters (due to being Drama characters) didn’t get obvious hints or situations, he’d always be the one who gets them, and then act like he didn’t like everyone else. I absolutely loved this.

The OST to me was kind of disappointing, considering this is a Drama playing within the music business... there we’re very little songs (2?) that just kept on repeating, and I personally didn’t really like both of them that much...

All in all, if you want something entertaining, sweet but also exciting, watch this one, I am almost sure you will not regret.

Read More

What a fine drama! "You are beautiful" followed a cult status in Korea after its weeks of airing, and even have its remakes after that. It has its hilarious moments and the music is so wonderful that my heart warmed by it. With its classic plot of a girl that has to pose as a boy due to reasons, and her falling for the male-lead during it.Shin-hye did a remarkable job playing as the innocent and gentle Mi-nyeo and even managed to pull of her twin-brother Minam in ep 15 so well that i crushed on him,haha!The arrogant male-lead and leader of the band A.N.Jell Hwang Tae-kyung was played by Jang Keun-suk who did a great job in showing the angst of a neglected son.I love the way he also adored Mi-nyeo, and the way he woos her without knowing. The others in the band (who also falls for Mi-nyeo) are the gentle Shin-woo and the bubbly Jeremy, no wonder many had second lead syndrome in this drama,because these guys are just golden!

Read More

Nostalgic memories of being 15 years old and diving into the world of kdramas

I feel like I almost can't rate this show because it is such a piece of nostalgia.
I think You're Beautiful was one of the first kdramas that I really fell in love with and now 11 years later I am still an avid kdrama watcher.

I remember how CN Blue was newly formed and Jung Yong Hwa was an unknown and how much I loved Jang Geun Suk x Park Shin Hye in the drama, so much so that I was looking up news of them to see if they were a couple in real life. And this takes me back to memories of rewatching endless clips from the drama of Jeremy / Lee Hong Ki being absolutely adorable online, and downloading episodes onto my iTouch to watch away from the house.

I haven't watched this drama in years but I remember it with fond memories. Also I still remember the melody of the theme song 11 years later, so there's that. I feel like this rating is more how much my 15 year old self enjoyed the drama and not necessarily how I would rate it now.

Read More

Как обычно подбешивала главная героиня, но к чести создателей, она оказалась сильной личностью. Г герой, как я уже писала, сшибал всех своей холодностью, позерством и эгоизмом (причем по сценарию). Но боже мой, как же он менялся когда просто улыбался. Второстепенные персонажи тоже хороши, но это почти во всех дорамах. Злодейки даже в конце немножко исправились и старая и молодая. Мне очень понравился внешне второй член группы, гитарист, который тоже был влюблен в Гг-ню, но так долго телился, так достал своей неуверенностью, что напомнил мне двух моих знакомых-балбесов, которые ведут себя так же.
И вот чего офигительно умеют делать дорамщики, так это в каждой серии ставить пару-тройку кульминационных моментов - с выдержанной паузой, крупными планами и "серпом по яйцам".

Read More