Heartstrings

Heartstrings

6/10

Heartstrings 

Genre:                                   Episodes: 15                                   Year: 2011

Romance

Comedy

Melodrama

Synopsis:

Lee Kyu Won is a gayageum player who is studying traditional music at an art university. Kyu Won is encouraged to take part in the university’s musical as the Director, Kim Suk Hyun, sees that she has talent in both acting and singing. Lee Shin is a student at the same university, and singer for the band ‘The Stupid’. Shin also participates in the musical due to his crush on Jung Yun Soo, the dance choreographer and the Director’s ex-girlfriend.

Cast:

Jung Yong Hwa (Lee Shin)

Park Shin Hye (Lee Kyu Won)

Song Chang Eui (Director Kim Suk Hyun)

So Yi Hyun (Jung Yun Soo)

Kim Yoon Hye (Han Hee Joo)

Kang Min Hyuk (Yeo Joon Hee)

Lee Hyun Jin (Hyun Ki Young)

General Thoughts:

This drama was significantly better than I thought it would be. Probably because I thought it would be complete and utter rubbish. But I’ve seen worse. I’ll admit, the whole thing is basically just a giant fan-service for all the viewers who wanted Park Shin Hye and Jung Yong Hwa’s characters to get together in ‘You’re Beautiful’. But still- ain’t nothing wrong with a bit of fan-service.

Now we just need a drama starring Park Shin Hye and Lee Hong Ki

Yong is wonderful. His acting- not so much. But he has improved. Lee Kyu Won is probably one of my favourites of Park Shin Hye’s characters so far, because the writers didn’t try to up-play her cuteness. She’s naturally a very cute, sweet looking girl, so it was nice to see her act out something other than a candy-girl, while still maintaining the needed cuteness. The story itself was pretty simple and didn’t have a lot of depth. It was fairly predictable and didn’t have much conflict.

Shhhh- just let it happen

After the initial love triangle/square was sorted out (which happened alarmingly early), the only source of drama came from Han Hee Joo’s mum- who was an unconvincing antagonist to say the least. I got on the Director X Kyu Won ship pretty early and was reluctant to leave it. While Yong and Park Shin Hye are great together (and eventually so are their characters), it was adorable to see the relationship develop between Kyu Won and the Director. At the start, he treats her in such a friendly, close manner that it seems as though the writers are setting him up to deny his increasing feelings towards the gayageum player- but no. It was a little lame to see the two main male leads fight over the stupid ballerina, and it made it feel as though our leading lady was…not the leading lady. While it did generate sympathy for Kyu Won, it didn’t do a lot for our male characters. It was unconvincing that Shin made the switch from the choreographer to Kyu Won so quickly, and did make Kyu Won appear as a bit of a backup. It also didn’t fit well with the way the show ended. He moves on from ballerina b*tch who he was soul-crushingly in love with for Kyu Won in 5 minutes, but can’t get over Kyu Won in a whole year?  Please. The only way that would be believable would be if Shin was going to make a play for her when she got back from abroad. But he didn’t. What, so his whole plan was to dump her and then be a moody butt for the rest of his life? Nope, nope, nope, not buying it. And those support characters. What wasted potential.

At least there was no risk of the support outshining the main stars

Apart from the four main leads, no one else gets much of a story. Which can be overlooked in some dramas, but when your support characters become the driving force behind your plot, it would be nice to explain them a little. Just sayin’.

What Was Great:

Yong X Shin:

Yes, yes, the main leads. They had good chemistry together. Don’t get me wrong here- I’m not saying that beloved Yong’s acting was good.

Just focus on the face, not the acting

Because, if we’re all honest with ourselves (which I know we don’t want to be, because who doesn’t want to believe Jung Yong Hwa is perfect?), he’s not the best actor out. He’s quite wooden to start, but as the drama continues he relaxes more into his character and delivers a more comfortable, believable performance. It’s just such a shame to know that he can be really dynamic and energetic in real life, and yet his acting can be so robotic. Aaaaanyway- Park Shin Hye does a great job, and was probably a significant factor behind Yong finding his groove. Their natural, friendly relationship translated to their characters beautifully. It’s not the hot, dynamic, ‘have-me-now’ kind of chemistry, but the sweet, comfortable, ‘I’m-in-love-with-my-best-friend’ kind of chemistry. Which is adorable to watch, and a source of envy for all single people everywhere. While I was never convinced why Shin fell for Kyu Won, in the end I was convinced that he had fallen for her- which is all that really matters I guess.

4 open eyes + 0 movement = Most awkward kiss ever

No Lag:

There’s not really any plot beyond the main relationship. At all. And yet, the drama never gets outright boring. There’s always enough of something going on that’s it’s easy enough to be distracted. Perhaps it was because I went in expecting nothing, so the fact that I wasn’t bored to tears was enough of a highlight.

The Music:

Being a music drama, thankfully the music was good. Being a huge CNBLUE fan, it was unlikely that I wouldn’t enjoy the music. There’s even some F. T. Island in there. It’s a fangirl’s fanstasy. Yong Hwa has an amazing voice and it’s delightful and magical and wonderful and everything you want in a man’s voice.

Yeah! 50% of CNBLUE!

Park Shin Hye’s got a good voice as well, and it melds with Yong’s beautifully. I wasn’t a huge fan of the modern-traditional music mix, but it wasn’t awful either. It does help Yong’s not-so-spectacular acting to be able to add some ‘wow’ to the drama when he sings. As dead-pan as his acting can sometimes be, he never appears more brutally honest and completely captivating than when he’s singing.

What Wasn’t:

Weak Antagonists:

Oh good grief. K-Drama rom-coms just don’t really know how to do villains. It shouldn't be an amazing thing to have a strong character oppose our main characters. But it is. And we don’t get any amazement here.

Do us all a favor and choke.

Our main antagonists are: Han Hee Joo, Han Hee Joo’s mum, and Im Tae Joon. Han Hee Joo just comes across as self-centred and wilful. There’s not a lot going on below the surface and she actually doesn’t do very much. Hee Joo’s mum is just controlling and no one knows why. It’s obvious she’s not acting out of an innate desire for what’s best for her daughter- so why is she doing this? Who knows, because we never get anything close to an explanation. And then there’s Im Tae Joon, who appears to like nothing more than to be contrary. Siding with Hee Joo’s mum didn’t seem to benefit him at all, except that he had some vaguely explained dislike towards the Director and didn’t want anything to go the Director’s way. He was just small and petty. Not scary.

He's only a jealous dude

Weak Support:

To go along with our poor antagonists we have some badly constructed support characters. I’ve really said all I have to say about Hee Joo above, so I’ll move on.

Cute as he may be, I don't actually believe anyone that dumb exists

Min Hyuk’s character Joon Hee just became painful to watch. He started out as carefree and adorable, and seemed to have something more going on beneath the surface, and have a little bit of brains at least. But by the end he was nothing more than an idiot sitting on a b*tchy girl’s porch. It was unbelievable and frustrating that he didn’t fess up to being with Hee Joo when she missed the call for the sponsor performance. It’s obvious that he cares deeply for Hee Joo (as deeply as his one brain cell allows), but it’s also obvious that he cares deeply for both Shin and Kyu Won. It didn’t make a lot of sense why he chose her over them, apart from the very obvious explanation that he’s just plain retarded. Also I just didn’t dig him and Hee Joo together at all. Right ‘til the end I was waiting for him to realise Cha Bo Woon had loved him and respected him all along. But no. And what a waste of talent for poor Lee Hyun Jin! His character Hyun Ki Young was set up to be some sort of important game-changer, but he just fell away to the side. He had a weird and unexplored relationship with the director, and a weird unexplored relationship with Hee Joo. I honestly wonder why his character was necessary at all, because sadly- he added nothing to the story beyond his killer voice and nice abbs.

Aww sweetie...did you think you'd be important?

Weak Conflict:

Nothing happens. With weak antagonists it’s unlikely to have a strong plot, so it’s not all that surprising that there wasn’t a lot of meat to this drama. I’m just going to ignore the mildly incestuous parent-romance because we’re all going to agree that it just never happened. Okay? Moving on. The whole portion about the musical was nice, but more or less conflict free.

Though this cover for Park Shin Hye's injury did flow pretty seemlessly

The biggest drama in the series came from the mish-mash of feelings going on between the four main leads. It was heartbreaking to watch Shin be constantly rejected and it was heartbreaking to watch Kyu Won see Shin strive on despite his rejections.

Are we just gonna go ahead and ignore this? Oh, okay whatever.

For a moment there it seemed as though the show was going to take advantage of the confusing emotions of these characters and have it as a continuing theme to add a bit of tension, but it just didn’t happen. The Director only looks at the stupid ballerina and clears up any misunderstandings and chances for unclear feelings far too early on. The hotel scandal in the second half should have been the biggest controversy ever, but that’s brushed to the side in less than an episode. Student possibly boning a teacher in order to get the main lead in a musical? Meh. Young boy won’t confess he was with some girl for 30 minutes? OH MY GOD CALL THE PRESS WHAT A SCANDAL.

So. Yi. Hyun:

I don’t like her. I just don’t. She’s not bad to look at I suppose, but she can’t act her way out of a paper bag. There are literally thousands of Korean actresses who can actually put on a convincing performance- so why wouldn’t you choose one of them? I just…I can’t even. Aish. Also her character just plain sucked. After the initial Shin crush, apart from being paired with the Director she added nothing to the show. And yet we kept seeing her. No, no- writers get her off my TV.

Barf.

NO CAMEO?!:

How can you have a drama with two CNBLUE boys and not have the others make a teeny appearance? It’s just not fair. This whole drama was basically about bringing fans’ Yong Hwa X Shin Hye fantasies to life- but you couldn’t slap Lee Jong Hyun in there for a minute? Boooo.

                            ↑               Right where Lee Jong Hyun should be standing. 

Re-watch?

No. It threatened to be boring the first time around, so I wouldn’t risk a second. Also- I just plain don’t want to watch it again. I adore Jung Yong Hwa, but even still. It’s not a bad drama, it’s not a good drama. I would only recommend it to you if you were already a Yong Hwa/Park Shin Hye fan.

Most awkward kiss ever - 4 open eyes = Still pretty awkward

Who Are You?

Who Are You?

3.5/10

Who Are You?

Genre:                                   Episodes: 16                                   Year: 2013

Mystery

Romance

Supernatural

Synopsis:

After Detective Yang Shi Ohn wakes up from a six-year coma, she is assigned to the Police’s Lost and Found Department. While working, she discovers that since waking up from her coma, she is able to see ghosts who have a lingering attachment to the world. Together with her partner Cha Gun Woo, she helps solve cold cases so that the ghosts can move on to the afterlife. One of the ghosts is Detective Lee Hyung Joon, a detective who died six years ago while on a stakeout for a drug trafficking case- a case that is connected to Yang Shi Ohn’s coma-inducing injury.

Cast:

So Yi Hyun (Yang Shi Ohn)

Ok Taecyeon (Cha Gun Woo)

Kim Jae Wook (Lee Hyung Joon)

General Thoughts:

The plot was laughably bad

I think it says a lot about a drama when there are only three main cast members, and they are all involved in the main love-triangle. The storyline itself isn’t all that good, it’s pretty shallow and there’s nothing going on under the surface. Everything is face value- what you see is what you get. There are no real surprises, even though the show does try, it’s all pretty clear where everything is headed. Taecyeon and Jae Wook are sad victims of poorly written characters, and rather thankfully, So Yi Hyun’s character was also poorly written- allowing us to mostly bypass her average acting ability. No characters change or develop, the plot is overly simple, and the second half drags.

What Was Great:

Male Cast:

By far the shining beacon of hope in this drama is its male actors. Originally, I only picked up this drama because it had Taecyeon on the front, and I was delighted to see that Kim Jae Wook would also play a role. Taecyeon fits well with the goofy, headstrong cop, delivering believable emotion in the one or two scenes that called for it. Jae Wook kills it as both the silent, vengeful ghost, and the loving, straight-shooting detective. He displays more depth and emotion in one silent facial expression, than our leading actress managed in the whole drama. Both the boys did excellent jobs at performing their rather sloppily constructed characters.

Just bask in the beauty of the boys

Ghosts:

I hate horror. I get scared easily. This drama does a really good job of making the ghosts creepy, but not scary. The ghosts were all acted really well, able to convey great emotion without uttering a single word. The ghost plotlines were also the most interesting aspect of the drama. These plotlines asked for very little acting ability from So Yi Hyun, and each segment was long enough that it was an interesting, well-rounded story, but short enough that it never felt dragged out.

Oh ghost girl, please distract me from the disaster that is the main plot

I was hoping that we would have a few more short ghost cases before getting into the so-called ‘thick’ of the story, as I so accurately predicted that there wouldn’t be enough content to stretch across 8 or so episodes. Sadly, the drama tries getting to the main point too fast, and loses what little momentum it had.

What Wasn’t:

Bad Acting:

Classic deer in headlights

I’ve never actually seen So Yi Hyun in anything else, so I don’t know how much was her little amount of acting ability, or just a terribly written character. In any case, the boys were able to act well (enough) despite their two-dimensional characters, and she wasn’t. It was less noticeable during the ghost plotlines, because all she had to do was stand there like a startled rabbit- and we all know Korean actresses are great at that. Even if you can’t do anything else, if you can do a good startled rabbit- you’re golden. Seriously though, as we got into the main story it became more apparent that Yi Hyun was not the best fit for the role. The sporadically written character (going from deadpan, humourless detective, to klutzy, cheeky girlfriend) was not helped by So Yi Hyun’s increasingly schizophrenic performance. Casting a weak female lead is basically shooting yourself in the foot.

That character flop though...eish

Poor Plot:

There’s not a lot that can save a badly written plot, try as Taecyeon and Jae Wook may. It’s just not good. It’s written as though it wants to go deep into the corruption in the police force and politicians, but it never really makes it there. It might have worked, had there been a few corrupt individuals, and innocent Detective Hyung Joon was working with them when he got shot, but the writers tried to make it too big. It wasn’t even slightly believable that two cops from Lost and Found could get involved in a highly efficient, deep-rooted string of corruption and get away (mostly) unscathed.

The police-work...it's not good...

There was never a sense that our two main cops were in over their heads, and they managed to arrest the highly powerful baddies far too easily. Go back to your little lost and found box where you belong. If a weak female lead is a shot in the foot, a terrible plot is shooting yourself in the head. Similar to how I’m sure many of us felt after sitting through this fiasco of a drama.

Character Similarities:

Cha Gun Woo and Lee Hyung Joon are way too similar. It was as though the writers couldn’t get past their own concept of a perfect man enough to create two distinguishable, enjoyable main male leads. Okay- dead, vengeful, angry ghost Hyung Joon was fantastic. He was stoic and determined in death. But in all flashbacks, alive Hyung Joon was cheeky, funny and sweet- much like Gun Woo. He also had a strong sense of justice and responsibility, taking his work extremely seriously- just like Gun Woo.

Notice any similarities?

Due to these similarities, it never felt like Yang Shi Ohn actually liked Gun Woo. All the moments when we see her contemplating her growing feelings are situations in which Gun Woo has acted similarly to Hyung Joon. I get that people have an ideal type, but these two boys were basically the same person. It just came across as Shi Ohn looking for the ghost of Hyung Joon in Gun Woo, rather than liking him for who he actually is. Did not buy the romance between them at all.

It's all a little uncomfortable

More Comas:

K-Dramas love their comas. First off, six years is a long bloody time for someone to be in a coma. Not to mention if Shi Ohn had accidently stumbled into witnessing the biggest corruption in the Korean police force, I’m sure SOMEONE would have managed to snuff her out in the six years she was lying there all defenseless.

Here's a coma, there's a coma, everywhere a coma coma

Why bother giving us the spark of hope with Hyung Joon? So he’s not dead- yay! But his girlfriend finds him just in time for him to die- boo! Not killing off Hyung Joon originally added nothing to the plot or character development, and he ended up dying anyway. I’m not sure if my verging tears were for Hyung Joon, or the 16 hours I flushed away.

She Didn’t Look at Him:

Look at the beautiful man, LOOK AT HIM

Was I the only one bothered by the fact that Shi Ohn didn’t look at Hyung Joon’s ghost as he died? Surely this pissed off more people than just me. It’s such a stupid thing to get annoyed about, but I just can’t help it. Like, rather than looking at his currently…living(?)…existing(?) presence, she’s focused on his dead body. C’mon girl, the dead body will be there forever. Turn your ass around to look at the smiling, weeping ghostie who’s trying to say goodbye to you. Jeezus.

Re-watch?

Never. I adore both Taecyeon and Jae Wook- but frankly, I can watch them in other, better dramas.

I feel sad for all Jae Wook's wasted potential