Details

  • Last Online: 52 minutes ago
  • Location:
  • Contribution Points: 0 LV0
  • Roles:
  • Join Date: February 18, 2023
Flower Boy Next Door korean drama review
Completed
Flower Boy Next Door
0 people found this review helpful
by 50FiftillidideeBrain
Feb 24, 2025
16 of 16 episodes seen
Completed
Overall 7.0
Story 7.0
Acting/Cast 8.0
Music 8.0
Rewatch Value 4.0

⚘Peeping Beauty & The 6 Bloomin' Pretty Prunks⚘ °Good°

Alas! What Light Through Yonder Window Breaks? It Is The East, And Enrique Is The ☀.

This charming little romance brings together the 🌞 and the 🌚, the dark bitter coffee and some silky white cream, the earthy tea and bright lively 🍋, and the girl with social anxiety meets a boy who hates to be alone.

Duk-mi (Park Shin-hye) is a book editor and hermit. Since she works from home, she rarely goes out. She can go weeks, 📆 months even, without leaving her building. She brings the outside world in through her binoculars.

Her apartment is special. Miserly Duk-mi is able to afford it as no security deposit is required, but if she is late even 1 day with the rent, she’ll be evicted. That’s the rules. Given it’s a very good deal, she mostly has happy neighbors. Every day there's a note with a drawing and a warm hello stuck to her delivered milk. She doesn't know it, but her next door neighbor. Jin-rok, a cartoonist (more specifically, a web-toonist) by trade, is stuck on her, and leaves her notes daily.

Duk-mi is stuck in a variety of ways. One of them is that she's stuck on the handsome doctor in the bldg across the street. She even enjoys peeping at his dog, so she peeks over at him more than she should. The doc really is handsome, but he seems dull. Spying is all that interests Duk-mi. As a recluse, she avoids all interaction.

The doctor’s younger brother, game designer Enrique, comes to stay with his brother in SK indefinitely, from Spain, where he’s been living for years. Enrique catches Duk-mi doin her thing one morning and runs across the street to confront her. That /terrorizes/ her. Neighbor, Jin-rok comes to her defense. Thus, 🌺BND leaves the building and starts chuggin down the street.

16 episodes allows Duk-mi a long time to come around, and that's how they play it. She can be a little frustrating. Isn’t that like true life, though? We almost always expect others to change on a dime, while at the same time, we give ourselves all the time in the 🌏. We’ll find out more about what caused Duk-mi’s trauma. She’s a metaphor for how bullies can crush the weak.

My niece told me once that we should never judge someone else's pain. I had just been complaining about a family member that's been wearing-hurt-on-sleeve for decades. It makes the person difficult to be around. I was wrong. Niecie was absolutely right. We expect everyone to handle things as well as we do, often even better. Why would we?

What do we /really/ know about someone's:

🌩Past, when sometimes that person can't even remember it because they've suppressed it?

🤰Genetics? Perhaps it's near impossible for someone to lose enough weight to make the 'mob' happy because it's just not in their genetics. We are not born with the same capabilities.

🎈/😭 Raw material. Some people can blow off everything and just keep going forward, and some people cannot. Sensitive, smart, intelligent, and caring people, like Duk-mi, can be hurt more easily and more deeply.

🌺BND is a cute & warm little series. There’s nothing going on but a bit of escapism. It’s actually appropriate for younger teens, which could be the group that appreciates 🌺BND the most, though it’s fine for every age.

As the show progresses, Duk-mi's next door neighbor (Oh Jin-rok is played by Kim Ji-hoon) finally works up the courage to pursue her. He’s been holding back out of deference to her anxieties. Along comes Enrique, who is joy in a jacket. He’ll bring joy to the girl. He doesn’t know the word “no.” He’s SO happy🎉 and charming, though, who would want to tell him “no?” Jin-rok will now have to scramble to catch up.

Jin-rok also begins a new webtoon about unrequited love, and it's a hit. However, everytime he and his partner go to their editor & manager, she’s frazzled and yells at them. Her eyes wide over deep dark circles from a stressful job and lack of sleep, she can be erratic. It’s not her best part, but Kim Seul-gi is always awesome. She shines in Oh My Ghost-10, which is a masterpiece in the romcom genre.

The soundtrack🎶 is terrific. The acoustic number: talkin bout love, by J Rabbit, is my favorite. The acting is solid, none of it detracts from the show. Park Shin-hye is wonderful, as always. Duk-mi is not an easy role. (PSH is her most amazing, imo, in Sisyphus as an eye-rolling kicka$$). The plot is simple and there are no substandard elements that impede significantly on the whole, which is why it remains a pleasant escape. That’s all they're going for, and they aptly succeeded.

That’s not to say it could not be improved upon. There should be more looking through their windows. They look out every now and then, but it seems it should have been a much stronger ongoing theme. They utilized an ending technique with comics/hand drawing over the business fronts and background. It is so good that I'm wondering why they didn't do more of it along the way. They certainly leave us wanting more. We don't get much info on Ji-rok's background, which is hinted at, but never resolved. We don't see his webtoon, and we never get to see any of the games that Enrique designs - We don't even get info on their storylines. It would have been fun to insert those details here and there: Lost opportunities mostly comprise the improvements list, along with its weak, substandard side plots.

If you are wondering about 🌺BND, it’s light, pleasant, fragrant, and vibrant. It will make you smile, it won’t challenge your brain much, (though it’s good for emotional intelligence) yet, it’s warmth cheers the ❤. Give it a peep👀, my Peeps!


🌼QUOTES🌼

🌹There are too many people who are rude about others' scars.

💐 I thought love was giving up half of yourself and filling it up with her half. She was afraid of love because she was afraid of her dark and gloomy half. She finally realized that love is two incomplete halves coming together. {Enrique}


🌺 Love is a wind-up clock. When it is new it'll give you the exact time. When the time passes, and you forget to wind the springs, the clock will break and stop. He started winding up the springs, so the clock wouldn't stop for a long time.{Duk-mi}


🌻 One person cannot change the world but you can become the w🌏rld for one pers☀n. {Enrique}


〰🖍 IMHO

🎬7 🎭 8 💓7 🦋5 🤔6 🎨6 😅4.5 ☀8 🎵8 🔚9



🌸Age 11+ 🗣topics: The lasting effects/damage that bullying can inflict. Practice kindness and patience with people that seem odd, as odd, annoying or strange behavior is often due to pain. Respect others.

PS.

They have recycled Kdrama tr♻pes, or plot devices. At this point it's almost a laughable lack of originality (Yet I'm still helplessly hooked on Asian programming, sigh).

♻MSS: Mandatory Separation Syndrome. The onset is after a couple comes together “forever.” Kdramas often insist on separating them for weeks, months, or even years before they’re afforded a Happily Ever After. It’s usually awful. Once Duk-mi starts healing, MSS provides needed time for her to grow on her own. That’s what is best for her, so there’s no “foul” here.

♻♥🔺 It's near ubiquitous, just edging out CEOs. In fairness, many romances have ♥🔺. Even the queen of them all: Pride And Prejudice. But enough already! Beside any of that, the brilliance of Kdrama scriptwriters shines through frequently. They can often easily do better. FBND seems to want to be a little goofy. They just tikted it a little far, but romantics will like it, and e'erbody will love Enrique.

〰️🖊 April 2022
Was this review helpful to you?