Sungkyunkwan Scandal

Sungkyunkwan Scandal

5/10

Sungkyunkwan Scandal

Genre:                                                  Episodes: 20                                    Year: 2010

Romance

Comedy

Historical

Synopsis:

Since her father passed away, Kim Yoon Hee has needed to earn money to support her mother and her sick brother. She works by disguising herself as her brother and providing answers to the men's only national exam. After being discovered as a stand-in during the exam, Yoon Hee is forced to take the exam under her brother’s name, Kim Yoon Shik, and is admitted into Sunkyunkwan University.

Cast:

Park Min Young (Kim Yoon Hee)

Park Yoo Chun (Lee Seon Joon)

Yoo Ah In (Moon Jae Shin)

Song Joong Ki (Gu Yong Ha)

Seo Hyo Rim (Ha Hyo Eun)

Jeon Tae Soo (Ha In Soo)

Ahn Nae Sang (Jung Yak Yong)

Cho Sung Ha (King Jung Jo)

Kim Min Seo (Cho Sun)

Kim Kap Soo (Lee Jung Moo)

General Thoughts:

I totally expected to love this drama, so I was bitterly disappointed when that didn’t exactly happen. Considering that most people call this one of the best ever K-Dramas, it didn’t really live up to the expectations.

Another drama killed by the hype-train

It’s not that the drama was all bad, there were definitely fun and interesting aspects to the story, it just didn’t hold my interest well enough for me to appreciate the fun and interesting moments when thy came around. To start with, the story wasn’t exactly extensive enough to warrant 20 episodes.

Quit forcing your love-line on me

The crossdressing hijinks and the humour that ensued could be pulled out for a few episodes, but after that we needed some beefy plot to kick in, and that kind of didn’t happen. A lot of the beginning of this drama was dedicated to various goings-on in Sungkyunkwan that were basically only there as a cause for Yoon Hee and Seon Joon to get closer. Which is fine, I guess, I just wished there’d been a tad more meaning behind these events as it was painfully obvious that they were only included as a way to get the leads actually interacting with each other. And when it requires that much effort to get your leads interacting, their whole relationship feels a bit forced. The second half of this series was dedicated to finding the Geum Deung Ji Sa (which the King then didn’t even use), and having the leads actually get together. Which isn’t a lot to spread over 10 hours. The acting was either really quite good, or on the worse side of mediocre. I’m a huge fan of Park Min Young, but I will admit that she felt a bit green here. Granted it is one of her earlier roles, but she didn’t have the natural charm that makes you love her character that she has since developed.

Moody, moody, dark and broody 

I’ve never found Yoo Chun to be a great actor- he’s just passable. But I actually found him pretty bad here. His character was painfully emotionless and robotic, and Park Yoo Chun didn’t add anything to the character that made him stand out as a loveable hero. Song Joong Ki and Yoo Ah In were so good that it kind of served to make Park Yoo Chul feel worse than he really was. Song Joong Ki and Yoo Ah In just have so much charisma that they completely overpowered poor Yoo Chun in every scene they were in together. Which of course kind of made me wonder why the heroine would fall for the most boring man in Sungkyunkwan.

These two were so much more fun. And nice. 

Jeon Tae Soo did well as our main character of conflict, and I found him believably arrogant and manipulative. However, his scare-factor was reduced a fair bit by having two of his minions being silly, bumbling characters who couldn’t pull off a single scheme.

It felt like they just barley tolerated each other

I thought Seo Hyo Lim was delightful as the innocent noblewoman, and Kim Min Seo was so dynamic as Cho Sun that I wished her story had been explored a bit more. The bromance between the four boys (well three boys and a girl) was charming when it came about, but I always had this feeling that they didn’t actually like each other all that much. Seon Joon was far too busy looking down on everyone to actually be friends with any of them, and Jae Shin had a pretty big hatred for Seon Joon and the rest of the Norons. While I understand that the drama needed tension behind it, I wish that the writers could’ve come up with some other way to add tension that didn’t include the main guys not liking/trusting each other. There were so many moments that could have been used to bring the boys closer together, but the writers always seemed to opt for using every single situation as an excuse to push Seon Joon and Yoon Hee together. It just felt like a total waste of these other two brilliant characters they had in Yong Ha and Jae Shin. I actually thought Yong Ha as a character got shafted pretty badly.

You're so cute and so interesting and so underdeveloped

He’s one of our main quartet and he only gets a smidge of his back story shown right at the end. Yes, I suppose the drama could have been trying to maintain his air of mystery, but Yong Ha would have been so much more interesting throughout the whole series had we known he was masquerading as a nobleman.

A fangirl's fantasy

I also just plain wasn’t a fan of Yong Ha’s ambiguity when it came to the friendships. While it was cute that he just did things for fun and to stir up toruble, in the grand scheme of things it didn’t make a lot of sense. Yong Ha clearly knew that Yoon Hee was a girl and that Jae Shin liked her, and yet it felt like he was going out of his way to set Yoon Hee up with Seon Joon- even before it was clear that Yoon Hee liked Seon Joon. Which seems like a pretty cr*ppy thing to do to your best friend who is so obviously in love with this girl. These behaviours might have been excused if he’d actually had a crush on Jae Shin, and it seemed like the drama was going to go that way for a while before it pulled out, but as just friends its a bit of a d*uche move. The ending also left me a bit baffled. Yoon Hee was teaching at Sungkyunkwan, that much was obvious, but was she still pretending to be a man (the students called her Yoon Shik not Yoon Hee)? Her gender was outed to the King and the rest of the quartet had known for ages- but was it ever actually revealed to everyone? If so, how did she avoid punishment? And how did she end up teaching?

This whole ending was just a confusing attempt at fan-service

The new messenger that Jae Shin caught was also obviously a girl (as evidenced by Jae Shin's hiccups), and yet Jae Shin mentioned that she was studying at Sungkyunkwan. If the Geum Deung Ji Sa wasn't used then how did the King manage to get to that Joseon he dreamed of- and so quickly too. 

What Was Great:

Solid Base:

The ingredients for this drama were all there, it’s just that they weren’t put together quite right. Yoon Hee crossdressing was always going to be fun, and there were definitely some hilarious moments that were caused by this situation. The moments of friendship and bromance we got between the main four were usually pretty delightful, and left me wishing that there had more moments like them.

There were some cute moments

The idea behind the Geum Deung Ji Sa was a good one, and having these four scholars hand picked by the King was a great way to bring them together. The idea of political faction friction and the class divide was an interesting one, but I just don’t think it was used to its full potential. 

What Wasn’t:

Seon Joon:

I was not a fan of this character. He was boring and uninteresting and came across as exceedingly arrogant most of the time. From the start I got off on the wrong foot with this character when he was criticising Yoon Hee’s view of class divide,

Isn't cool, no, I don't like you

poverty and the world at large when he himself had only lead a severely sheltered life with a buttload of money and power. Despite Yoon Hee being constructed as a smart character, I always kind of felt like he was belittling her. Sure, I think it was more that the writers were trying to have him teach Yoon Hee and challenge her world views, but for me it just ended up causing him to come across as highly obnoxious. And then when he thought he was gay it only lead me to dislike him more. While Yoon see sometimes acted shallow and petty it was obvious that this arose out of jealousy. However, when Seon Joon started acting petty it wasn’t because he was annoyed with how close Yoon Hee and Jae Shin were, or because Cho Sun loved Yoon Hee, but because he himself liked her. And that’s a really stupid and childish reason to be mean to someone. To make matters worse, Seon Joon was actually engaged to another woman for most of this show’s run. And he treated her like total poo.

I felt so bad for this poor girl

Seon Joon used Hyo Eun to try and make Yoon Hee jealous and to try and get over his own feelings, and I’m never a fan of abusing a third party like that.

Go for the guy that makes you smile not the guy that makes you cry

Hyo Eun was sweet and naive and in no way deserved to have her feelings trampled on so carelessly the way Seon Joon did- especially when you consider that his selfish act of asking her to marry him and then changing his mind would have a huge societal impact on Hyo Eun regardless of which party broke the marriage off. Girls in Joseon whose engagements fall through aren’t exactly thought of nicely, and don’t tend to have a lot of suitors afterwards. It only made things worse that next to Seon Joon we had Jae Shin- who was encouraging and supportive of Yoon Hee, and always went out of his way to make her feel comfortable. Yoon Hee smiled more when she was with Jae Shin, which only made me question more why she liked Seon Joon. The whole relationship just felt forced. 

Aged:

I don’t think this drama has aged particularly well. I know that’s it’s almost 10 years old now, but the whole show felt very dated. From the way it was shot, to the side characters that were purely for slapstick comedic effect, to the way it took 500 years for the plot to get moving- everything just felt like it belonged in the past.

I know it's set in the past and all, but this drama just felt old

While there are a lot of K-Dramas that have withstood the test of time and remain engaging, interesting shows despite the year they were made, I don’t think ‘Sungkyunwan Scandal’ is one of them.

Recommend?

Not really. Despite still being one of the top K-Dramas people say are fabulous, I really don’t think there’s that much good stuff in this drama. I can see how it could’ve been amazing when it first came out- but that was a whole 8 years ago now.

I didn't really feel the sparkle

Top 5 If Only I Had More Time Dramas

Top 5 

If Only I Had More Time Dramas

It’s that time of year again where I find myself at a bit of a loss for what to watch. A lot of the 2018 dramas I want to watch haven’t finished airing yet, and there’s so many K-Dramas on my ‘To Watch’ list that I kind of don’t know where to start. By the time I get through one or two dramas on that list, a bunch of 2018 dramas will have finished, and I'll find myself starting to fall behind again and end up dedicating my time solely to new dramas. Inevitably this means that there’s a whole heap of K-Dramas the I’ve been meaning to watch, but just never got around to. Here’s my pick of the top 5 K-Dramas I’d watch if I had more time to get through them. 

5: Pasta

I’ve seen and loved most of Gong Hyo Jin’s dramas, and the few snippets of ‘Pasta’ I’ve seen seem really cute. I can’t really imagine Gong Hyo Jin paired with Lee Sun Kyun either, so I almost want to watch this drama just to see how that works. Perhaps one of the biggest reasons I never get around to watching this drama is that it's 20 episodes as opposed to the usual 16. I know it’s not much, but those extra 4 hours just make a drama seem so much longer and take so much more time to finish. I’ve also found that recently I’ve not been watching dramas much older than 2014, and ‘Pasta’ came out in 2010.

4: Angel Eyes

To be fairly honest, I kind of don’t understand why haven’t watched this drama. Probably because it’s a melo, and I’m just not that keen on melodramas. But the caaaaaast. The hero is Lee Sang Yoon who I’ve liked in everything I’ve seen him in (even if that list isn’t very extensive), Kim Ji Suk, Panda Seungri from Big Bang (seriously, why haven’t I watched this?), Park Jin Joo, and even Kang Ha Neul! Again, this drama is 20 episodes…and I just struggle committing that many hours.

3: Nice Guy

‘Nice Guy’ (also known as ‘The Innocent Man’) is a drama I’m sure I’d like once I get into, and I’ve been meaning to start it but I just never quite get there. I’ve wanted to watch it because hello, Song Joong Ki, and I’ve heard good things about this show. It’s also got Lee Kwang Soo, Lee Sang Yeob and Kim Tae Hoon in it, all who I love watching on screen. I guess the thing that mostly puts me off getting started on this drama is that it’s a melo-revenge story. And I’m generally not that keen on melodrama, unless it’s done really, really, really well. ‘Nice Guy’ also has 20 episodes, which is another reason it ends up lingering on my ‘To Watch’ list without ever actually getting watched.

2: Gaksital

I have heard only great things about this show. It’s supposed to be intense, heart-racing and emotional, with a great story and shot beautifully. It’s an action rather than pure melodrama, and is set during the Japanese occupancy of South Korea- which is a period that I somehow haven’t ended up seeing very much of. To be fairly honest the synopsis I’ve read confuses me a little, but I’ve heard so many raving reviews that I’m sure it all makes sense once you watch it. I think the daunting 28 episodes is what’s kept me reaching for other dramas before this one.

1: White Christmas

‘White Christmas’ is a show I actually really, really want to watch, and I honestly can’t tell you why I haven’t. Unlike the other dramas on this list there’s no reason why I wouldn’t watch this drama. Except that I work most of the time and have a limited amount of time I can dedicate to K-Drama viewing. It’s a mystery-thriller (which I tend to enjoy), and I’ve even heard that it’s pretty smart and hard to predict. It’s a drama special with only 8 episodes, which is a friendly amount that I can commit to. It’s also got Baek Sung Hyun, Kim Young Kwang, Lee Soo Hyuk, Hong Jong Hyun, Kim Woo Bin, Sung Joon and Lee El. That’s a pretty solid cast right there. I’ve no doubt that I will eventually get around to watching this one, it’s just a matter of when.

What K-Dramas would you watch if you had more time?

Longing Heart

Longing Heart

7/10

Longing Heart

Genre:                                                 Episodes: 10                                   Year: 2018

Romance

Comedy

Synopsis:

Kang Shin Woo is a high school teacher who has been unable to forget his first love, Han Ji Soo. Ten years ago he never had the courage to confess, Ji Soo moved overseas, and Shin Woo hasn’t seen her since. After magically being transported to the past, Shin Woo works as a teacher for his own homeroom class from ten years ago, where he tries to make his 18 year old self’s love come true.

Cast:

Lee Jung Shin (Kang Shin Woo)

Seo Ji Hoon (Kang Shin Woo)

Lee Yeol Eum (Han Ji Soo)

Kim Sun Young (Shin Woo's Mother)

Kim Min Seok (Kim Min Seok)

Min Do Hee (Jang Bo Ra)

Lee Joo Hyung (Joo Geun Deok)

Cho Seung Hee (Baek Na Hee)

Lee Tae Sun (Shin Joo Hwan)

Song Ji Hyun (Kang Shin Hee)

General Thoughts:

It’s not a perfect drama, but it was really quite enjoyable, and I was always pretty bummed whenever I had to stop watching and actually go do something. Like work.

If only someone would pay me to watch K-Dramas

While it might not be the most fast-paced drama I’ve ever watched, it definitely had a nice slow burn, and left me wanting more whenever an episode finished. Cliffhangers get me every time. Time travel dramas are ones I usually tend to enjoy (unless they’re riddled with loopholes),

They even look kinda similar

and I liked the twist that the hero doesn’t actually wake up in his 18-year old body, but rather there were two of him existing at one time. Most of the time travel dramas I’ve watched recently have only had one character in that time frame. In ‘Tunnel’ we had the hero go to the future where a future version of himself didn’t exist because he had disappeared in the past. In ‘Go Back Spouses’ we had our leads’ adult minds waking up in their 18 year old bodies. ‘Tomorrow With You’ played with the idea of multiple versions of the hero, but that drama was such a hot mess that nothing really made sense. What I’m trying to say (in a convoluted way) is that ‘Longing Heart’ felt really unique by having two versions of our hero existing in one time-space. It was delightful having two sides of the love triangle being the same person, particularly when Shin Woo got jealous of himself. For me, this drama marks the series where Lee Jung Shin has come into his own as an actor.

And with this drama Yong Hwa officially becomes the worst actor in CNBLUE

He felt relaxed and natural, and suit both the comedy and the melo moments well. He had great chemistry with Seo Ji Hoon (who I have loved since I first laid eyes on him in ‘Solomon’s Perjury’), and I absolutely adored any scene with the two of them goofing around, bickering, or having a heart-to-heart. Actually, I enjoyed any scene that simply had both of them in it. Seo Ji Hoon really felt like a younger brother to Lee Jung Shin, and the two do look kind of similar, so it wasn’t a huge stretch of the imagination to think they were the same person.

Don't we all have a bit of a love-hate relationship with our teenage selves?

Seo Ji Hoon smashed his role here- he fits broken-hearted high school kids so well. My heart just bleeds whenever he gets his sad-puppy face on, but I was also happy to see him have more light-hearted and fun scenes

I will watch anything with Seo Ji Hoon in it. Literally, anything.

which I haven’t really seen from him in the past. While I think Seo Ji Hoon is one of the most talented up and coming actors, I also didn’t feel like he out-acted Lee Jung Shin in any way. Whether it was a funny scene or an dramatic scene, the two actors matched their emotions well- one never seemed sadder or lonelier than the other. It could have been a huge disaster if one of the two had been a much better actor than the other, but as it was they suited each other well, and made both characters of Shin Woo totally loveable. I was less convinced with Lee Yeol Eum, who is a new face for me, but I certainly didn’t think she brought the drama down either. Ji Soo was written as a bit of a downer, and I always think it’s hard for actors to make these characters really likeable. I found Lee Yeol Eum much more convincing in the 2007 timeline where she had a much bigger range of emotions to express. Because let’s be real, in the 2017 timeline all she really got to do was act sad and distant. Ji Soo was much more fun as the vibrant, confident student with a crush on her teacher, and it was easy to see why Shin Woo fell for her so hard.

2007 Ji Soo was way more fun than 2017 Ji Soo

I really liked the supporting cast as well. I always like seeing Min Do Hee, and she brought her usual sass to her character. I liked the story arc she got with her high school sweetheart and how both their dreams faded over time.

I'm always up for a noona romance side story

I always love a good noona crush, so I found Lee Joo Young’s character pretty reliably fun- even if I don’t always think he’s the best actor. Lee Tae Sun probably could have snagged my heart in this drama if Seo Ji Hoon hadn’t been the lead, because he just adds such an earnestness to his characters that makes you like them. The moment his character revealed all those rings he’d been buying for Ji Soo, I felt totally gutted for him. I enjoyed that we spent a bit of time with characters outside of the love triangle every now and then, as it gave us a bit of breathing space and prevented us from becoming too over-saturated with the love story. I tend to always enjoy dramas that have well-developed side characters. The drama was shot quite nicely most of the time, quite often having a lot of very pretty and visually pleasing scenes. My one complaint is the excessive use of fading scene transitions. I’ve never really been a fan of them, especially now that dramas are getting a lot more slick and modern- it just felt a bit old-school. Maybe that was the point (time-travel and all), but I kinda get the feeling it was done to play up the romantic glow or heartbreaking angst in the scene rather than highlight time differences. And it just makes it so darn hard to screenshot the nice moments when they’re constantly fading into another scene/close up.

There's a time and a place for dissolve transitions- and that's when I'm not trying to screenshot.

What Was Great:

Unpredictable:

I always enjoy a drama that’s hard to predict. Not in the way where no one really has any idea what’s going on because the plot is a mess (‘Missing 9’ I’m looking at you here),

Did not expect young Shin Woo to go to 2017

but because the show takes steps that shy away from the cliche that most dramas gravitate towards. I thought Shin Woo’s trip back in time would be so he could matchmake his past self and his first love, so each time Shin Woo found out something new or made a mistake I was pleasantly surprised. Usually time travellers from the future know the past exactly, so it was refreshing to have some of Shin Woo’s ideas that he was so sure of just be plain wrong. I think the thing that surprised me most was definitely young Shin Woo coming to the present/future. It was a twist that I just didn’t see coming, and it was delightful. The two Shin Woo’s got much closer after young Shin Woo’s jump to the future, and I adored that 2017 Ji Soo liked young Shin Woo more than 2017 Shin Woo. There was something just so delightful about her falling for the other Shin Woo in each time line. It was never plainly obvious why Ji Soo left in the first place, which kept the show interesting, and allowed for more layers of her character to be peeled back. The only downside is that I think 2017 Ji Soo’s character suffered a bit (became a bit too sad and avoidant) in order to continue the mystery.

How much do I love that he was always jealous of himself? A lot. I loved it a lot.

What Wasn’t:

Unnecessary Sacrifice:

Despite enjoying so much of this drama (it was just plain fun), I still kinda fail to understand the actual reason behind why Shin Woo’s Mum couldn’t be saved. By the time Mum is getting on the ferry of doom, she is well aware that Teacher Kang is her son from the future.

But...but why get on the ferry of destruction?

What I wish the show had made clearer is whether Mum thought she was saving young Ji Soo from dying, or whether she thought she was just sending her back so her son could confess his feelings. It would have made sense if Mum thought she was just giving her son a chance with the girl he liked, but from my perspective Mum knew that boat was going to sink. So why get on it then? It’s not like if Ji Soo wasn’t on the ferry Mum had to be- Ji Soo had already left so all Mum had to do was just not get on the boat. It’s not like Mum’s death was giving the kids a shot at love that they wouldn’t have got otherwise- in fact it was just the opposite, with her death being the whole reason Ji Soo disappeared from Shin Woo’s life. The phone message left by Mum only further supported the idea that she knew she was going to die after getting on that ferry- but there was really no good reason for her to get on it in the first place! I mean, if your son from the future explicitly tells you not to do something, you’d probably catch on right? While it was kinda sweet that Mum was giving her son this second chance, the whole situation could have been avoided by her just not getting on the d*mn ferry of death.

If Mum doesn't die then 2017 Ji Soo can't be mopey. Well...better let Mum die then.

It felt like the writers thought it would make the whole time-slip thing too complicated if Mum didn’t die on that ferry (cuz that would drastically change 2017 Shin Woo’s life), so they just killed her off to keep things simple. This whole complaint rides on whether Mum knew that ferry was doomed or not, and unfortunately the drama didn’t quite make that clear.

Recommend?

Look if you were really considering whether to watch this drama or not, I’d tell you to give it a go. Or if you’re the type who really likes time-slip dramas this would be right up your alley. I probably wouldn’t recommend this to people who enjoy a more mature feel to their dramas though.

I just adored that he was in a love triangle with himself