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dangermousie(I have no idea how jet-lagged this is going to come across as. I am incredibly out of it :P)
So yes.
Save the Last Dance (otherwise known as 'The Last Dance is with Me').
A 20-episode kdrama that came out in 2004, starring Eugene and Ji Sung as the star-crossed lovers, StLD is a drama I totally fell in love with. In so many ways, it's the perfect romantic melodrama. Most of kdramas (at least the ones I watch) are very romantic, but this is the purest example of the genre.
What is it about? If you like old Hollywood movies, think Random Harvest with a bit of Affair to Remember thrown in.
Kang Hyon-Woo (Ji Sung) is the only son of the autocratic Chaiman Kang. His family wants him to train up in the business, and oh yes, marry a nicely suitable girl like Yoon Soo-Jin (Lee Bo-Young. Amusingly, she and Ji Sung are apparently now a couple in RL. Secondary Girl got the Guy after all). However, he has little interest in succeeding his father, preferring instead to concentrate on photography, which clearly does not make family happy. And as for Soo-Jin, she is madly (and obsessively) in love with him, but he sees her only as a sort of protected younger sister.
Ji Eun-Soo (Eugene) and her world couldn't be more different from Hyon-Woo's. She is the fiesty (I don't like using this word, but it's the only one which fits) daughter of a tourist inn-keeper in a very small village far away from Seoul, the kind of place where everyone knows everyone else. She is uninhibited, a bit bossy, and totally a darling. Much as I loved Ji Sung and his character (he is that rarity in kdrama heroes: a genuinely good and nice guy), I fell for Eun-Soo like a ton of bricks and saw the drama from her POV, which is rare for me.
Eun-Soo and Hyon-Woo would have never met, if Hyon-Woo hadn't met with a string of horrible circumstances after storming out of his house in a tearing rage after a fight with his father. When Eun-Soo and her father (a rare example of a totally delightful kdrama parent) literally almost run over the wounded, bleeding, disoriented Hyon-Woo on the road, they take him to the local hospital. Of course, this is a kdrama, and it turns out that Hyon-Woo will be fine after surgery, but he does not remember who he is, and he has no identifying documents. Oh, and his family thinks he is dead (plot reasons) so are not looking for him. Because Eun-Soo's father is really nice, he thinks it might be OK to take the wounded, nameless guy back to their inn, but Eun-Soo isn't so sure...
Anyway, at this rate, I will recount the whole plot, so better stop here.
So why did I love it so much (it has made it into my top kdramas list)? Oh, so many reasons. It is one of those dramas where the OTP is so totally the OTP that you can't see one without the other, at all. And the drama has them fall in love really early, and the rest is really fighting for this love, because no matter what they can not stay away. Only...this is only true for Eugene. Not so for Ji Sung. The real reason I love this drama even more, is that Ji Sung forgets Eugene and their year+ together, and he has to fall in love with her again. And he does. Even if he did agree to an arranged marriage with Secondary Girl (you get the sense he knows something in his life is lacking but he doesn't know what).
Oh, I love that. How he is drawn to this weird girl who works in the same place, the girl who is still mourning for her lost fiance, and he doesn't know what is happening and why and he is so angry and disoriented, and his ordered life is being thrown off-kilter but he can't help it. I love all the scenes: the one where she stops him calling him by his amnesia name and slaps him when he doesn't remember her (she doesn't know he forgot), or when after she got hired by his company (in order to be near him) and he ends up breaking her out of when she is stuck on the roof. Or when he tucks her in and traces her tears and looks at her locket, not remembering he is the one who gave it to her.
And eeeee, when his fiancee's friends try to humiliate Eugene at a party and Secondary Girl is physically attempting to restrain him from going to her, and then that giant ornament thingy falls and he shields her with his body. AWWWW. And then his uncomprehending anger, more at himself and the feelings he shouldn't have and her resignation letter and his coming to see her and begging her not to go and HUG and just he loves her again, all over again, without remembering her. OMG.
Btw, this drama is huge on hurt/comfort: not only do we have poor amnesiac wounded Hyon-Woo (I love the scene where Eugene sees him have a total breakdown in the hospital and the pity on her face and that is the moment she decides to take him in), but awwww, she ends up nursing him from a fever, too (after he looked for her in the rain).
We get two awesome heroes for the price of one, actually: the woobie with his heart in his eyes he is during amnesia and the icy, reserved business guy who needs to be melted by the right girl. Both my favorites!
I love all the stuff during amnesia time. He is so adorable, kinda like a big lost puppy and he totally 'imprinted' on Eun Soo and he is so jealous of her crush on the local doctor and worried because he has no idea who he is so he could be married or a criminal and feels he has no right to tell her how he feels. But of course she drags it out of him and her Dad is unappy but acquiesces and they get engaged and eee....such a pretty scene!
And afterwards, I love all the incredible angst, most of it courtesy of Secondary Girl who is in the running for the most hated Secondary Girl ever. I wanted her to die so badly. She claims she loves the hero, but it's not love, it's posessive obsession. Eugene's love is selfless: ultimately, she is ready to give up her OTP for his sake. But Secondary Girl? Does everything she can to wreck his life and make him a total wreck. I am not even taling about her concealing the fact that Eugene is a girl he was engaged to, before. But all the stuff she does, like attempting suicide to keep him by her side because she knows he is a good guy and has a strong conscience. I mean, when the guy you claim to love is begging you to let him go to his girlfriend, tears in his eyes? Lady, let go. (He's been nothing but straight with you. He told you repeatedly all he feels for you is friendship and that is the basis you got engaged on, and he broke up with you as soon as he realized his feelings for Eugene). But instead she guilts Eugene into leaving the guy.
And then, when he is so broken, because Eugene, to save him and his company, gets him to believe she is a golddigger and I love that he doesn't care, he begs her to come back anyway, and she is so cruel to him, and after all of this, he is so broken and he goes and proposes to Secondary Girl again, to save the company, and is weeping and is telling her she can have him if she wants someone who is going insane and whose heart is broken and who will never be able to love her, and he is stumbling and is a total mess (like he has been for a while) and she is all 'I will have you anyway' and oh, she is the one that caused all this, that made all this go this way, and the man she professes to love is in total agony and one word would stop it, but nooooo. Not her. (I kinda want to write angst!fic where they do get married and he calls her by Eun-Soo's name in bed and she gets frustrated with lack of love and has affairs and it's all meaningless). Seriously, girl, he's known you for 10 years and has never seen you that way, he is madly in love with another woman, and he's always been wonderful to you. Just let go.
And at the end, even, she doesn't give up, she doesn't relent, it's his finding that necklace by accident that makes him remember and realize.
I really love that Hyon-Woo, with everything, is just a very decent guy. He has issues, caused by some severe stressors, but he is someone who is well-adjusted at base. I also love that it's clear he's had a pretty lousy childhood (being illegitimate until Father's first wife died and Father married the Mistress and looked down on) but the drama never really dwells on it much. Never understood why he had to give up photography for business though, by the end. They always do that in kdramas. Guys might start out in unusual professions but somehow find their love for business. Weird (see also secondary guy in Smile Again). I don't really get that.
One thing that I wish they didn't do is the brief bit where she runs away after her accident. WTF? I know handicaps are a much bigger stigma in Korea than here, but seriously. He loves you. Girl, come on. This was a bit too much and I think they could have skipped the plot point. (yeah, we have amnesia, family grudges and gansters, and I cavil at that. Mind is weird). Reunion is adorable though and so is his spinning her after she successfully walked again.
So good. One of my favorites.
So, what else has Ji Sung been in?
In other news, am on episode 22 of Hong Gil Dong. You know, the dark direction this drama's taken really is working for me and I can actually see the ending work. Yay. This might be on a fave list after all.
Is it me, or is this the year of Robin Hoods for kdramas? First we have the recently finished Hong Gil Dong. Then we have Lee Junki's Iljimae in May.
And then Eric Mun (whom I loved in Que Sera Sera) is apparently doing a period drama Strongest Chil Woo about a government official who is actually an assassin at night against the evildoers, later in the year. No idea if the different MBC version of Iljimae slated for late in the year is still on, but haven't heard anything to the contrary, so I assume it is. Which makes it 4 stories within a year. YES.
Since I am done with a big batch of dramas, what to watch next. I plan to finish Goong rewatch and Chinese Paladin and Bichunmoo, of course, as well as MISA and Mawang, but hmmmm, what else? I have plenty of candidates for completed dramas, but what shall replace HGD among the currently airings? I think I will give both On Air and Who Are You a try. And of course, Three Dads, too.
I promise to reply to all the replies since I've been away by tomorrow...
So yes.
Save the Last Dance (otherwise known as 'The Last Dance is with Me').
A 20-episode kdrama that came out in 2004, starring Eugene and Ji Sung as the star-crossed lovers, StLD is a drama I totally fell in love with. In so many ways, it's the perfect romantic melodrama. Most of kdramas (at least the ones I watch) are very romantic, but this is the purest example of the genre.
What is it about? If you like old Hollywood movies, think Random Harvest with a bit of Affair to Remember thrown in.
Kang Hyon-Woo (Ji Sung) is the only son of the autocratic Chaiman Kang. His family wants him to train up in the business, and oh yes, marry a nicely suitable girl like Yoon Soo-Jin (Lee Bo-Young. Amusingly, she and Ji Sung are apparently now a couple in RL. Secondary Girl got the Guy after all). However, he has little interest in succeeding his father, preferring instead to concentrate on photography, which clearly does not make family happy. And as for Soo-Jin, she is madly (and obsessively) in love with him, but he sees her only as a sort of protected younger sister.
Ji Eun-Soo (Eugene) and her world couldn't be more different from Hyon-Woo's. She is the fiesty (I don't like using this word, but it's the only one which fits) daughter of a tourist inn-keeper in a very small village far away from Seoul, the kind of place where everyone knows everyone else. She is uninhibited, a bit bossy, and totally a darling. Much as I loved Ji Sung and his character (he is that rarity in kdrama heroes: a genuinely good and nice guy), I fell for Eun-Soo like a ton of bricks and saw the drama from her POV, which is rare for me.
Eun-Soo and Hyon-Woo would have never met, if Hyon-Woo hadn't met with a string of horrible circumstances after storming out of his house in a tearing rage after a fight with his father. When Eun-Soo and her father (a rare example of a totally delightful kdrama parent) literally almost run over the wounded, bleeding, disoriented Hyon-Woo on the road, they take him to the local hospital. Of course, this is a kdrama, and it turns out that Hyon-Woo will be fine after surgery, but he does not remember who he is, and he has no identifying documents. Oh, and his family thinks he is dead (plot reasons) so are not looking for him. Because Eun-Soo's father is really nice, he thinks it might be OK to take the wounded, nameless guy back to their inn, but Eun-Soo isn't so sure...
Anyway, at this rate, I will recount the whole plot, so better stop here.
So why did I love it so much (it has made it into my top kdramas list)? Oh, so many reasons. It is one of those dramas where the OTP is so totally the OTP that you can't see one without the other, at all. And the drama has them fall in love really early, and the rest is really fighting for this love, because no matter what they can not stay away. Only...this is only true for Eugene. Not so for Ji Sung. The real reason I love this drama even more, is that Ji Sung forgets Eugene and their year+ together, and he has to fall in love with her again. And he does. Even if he did agree to an arranged marriage with Secondary Girl (you get the sense he knows something in his life is lacking but he doesn't know what).
Oh, I love that. How he is drawn to this weird girl who works in the same place, the girl who is still mourning for her lost fiance, and he doesn't know what is happening and why and he is so angry and disoriented, and his ordered life is being thrown off-kilter but he can't help it. I love all the scenes: the one where she stops him calling him by his amnesia name and slaps him when he doesn't remember her (she doesn't know he forgot), or when after she got hired by his company (in order to be near him) and he ends up breaking her out of when she is stuck on the roof. Or when he tucks her in and traces her tears and looks at her locket, not remembering he is the one who gave it to her.
And eeeee, when his fiancee's friends try to humiliate Eugene at a party and Secondary Girl is physically attempting to restrain him from going to her, and then that giant ornament thingy falls and he shields her with his body. AWWWW. And then his uncomprehending anger, more at himself and the feelings he shouldn't have and her resignation letter and his coming to see her and begging her not to go and HUG and just he loves her again, all over again, without remembering her. OMG.
Btw, this drama is huge on hurt/comfort: not only do we have poor amnesiac wounded Hyon-Woo (I love the scene where Eugene sees him have a total breakdown in the hospital and the pity on her face and that is the moment she decides to take him in), but awwww, she ends up nursing him from a fever, too (after he looked for her in the rain).
We get two awesome heroes for the price of one, actually: the woobie with his heart in his eyes he is during amnesia and the icy, reserved business guy who needs to be melted by the right girl. Both my favorites!
I love all the stuff during amnesia time. He is so adorable, kinda like a big lost puppy and he totally 'imprinted' on Eun Soo and he is so jealous of her crush on the local doctor and worried because he has no idea who he is so he could be married or a criminal and feels he has no right to tell her how he feels. But of course she drags it out of him and her Dad is unappy but acquiesces and they get engaged and eee....such a pretty scene!
And afterwards, I love all the incredible angst, most of it courtesy of Secondary Girl who is in the running for the most hated Secondary Girl ever. I wanted her to die so badly. She claims she loves the hero, but it's not love, it's posessive obsession. Eugene's love is selfless: ultimately, she is ready to give up her OTP for his sake. But Secondary Girl? Does everything she can to wreck his life and make him a total wreck. I am not even taling about her concealing the fact that Eugene is a girl he was engaged to, before. But all the stuff she does, like attempting suicide to keep him by her side because she knows he is a good guy and has a strong conscience. I mean, when the guy you claim to love is begging you to let him go to his girlfriend, tears in his eyes? Lady, let go. (He's been nothing but straight with you. He told you repeatedly all he feels for you is friendship and that is the basis you got engaged on, and he broke up with you as soon as he realized his feelings for Eugene). But instead she guilts Eugene into leaving the guy.
And then, when he is so broken, because Eugene, to save him and his company, gets him to believe she is a golddigger and I love that he doesn't care, he begs her to come back anyway, and she is so cruel to him, and after all of this, he is so broken and he goes and proposes to Secondary Girl again, to save the company, and is weeping and is telling her she can have him if she wants someone who is going insane and whose heart is broken and who will never be able to love her, and he is stumbling and is a total mess (like he has been for a while) and she is all 'I will have you anyway' and oh, she is the one that caused all this, that made all this go this way, and the man she professes to love is in total agony and one word would stop it, but nooooo. Not her. (I kinda want to write angst!fic where they do get married and he calls her by Eun-Soo's name in bed and she gets frustrated with lack of love and has affairs and it's all meaningless). Seriously, girl, he's known you for 10 years and has never seen you that way, he is madly in love with another woman, and he's always been wonderful to you. Just let go.
And at the end, even, she doesn't give up, she doesn't relent, it's his finding that necklace by accident that makes him remember and realize.
I really love that Hyon-Woo, with everything, is just a very decent guy. He has issues, caused by some severe stressors, but he is someone who is well-adjusted at base. I also love that it's clear he's had a pretty lousy childhood (being illegitimate until Father's first wife died and Father married the Mistress and looked down on) but the drama never really dwells on it much. Never understood why he had to give up photography for business though, by the end. They always do that in kdramas. Guys might start out in unusual professions but somehow find their love for business. Weird (see also secondary guy in Smile Again). I don't really get that.
One thing that I wish they didn't do is the brief bit where she runs away after her accident. WTF? I know handicaps are a much bigger stigma in Korea than here, but seriously. He loves you. Girl, come on. This was a bit too much and I think they could have skipped the plot point. (yeah, we have amnesia, family grudges and gansters, and I cavil at that. Mind is weird). Reunion is adorable though and so is his spinning her after she successfully walked again.
So good. One of my favorites.
So, what else has Ji Sung been in?
In other news, am on episode 22 of Hong Gil Dong. You know, the dark direction this drama's taken really is working for me and I can actually see the ending work. Yay. This might be on a fave list after all.
Is it me, or is this the year of Robin Hoods for kdramas? First we have the recently finished Hong Gil Dong. Then we have Lee Junki's Iljimae in May.
And then Eric Mun (whom I loved in Que Sera Sera) is apparently doing a period drama Strongest Chil Woo about a government official who is actually an assassin at night against the evildoers, later in the year. No idea if the different MBC version of Iljimae slated for late in the year is still on, but haven't heard anything to the contrary, so I assume it is. Which makes it 4 stories within a year. YES.
Since I am done with a big batch of dramas, what to watch next. I plan to finish Goong rewatch and Chinese Paladin and Bichunmoo, of course, as well as MISA and Mawang, but hmmmm, what else? I have plenty of candidates for completed dramas, but what shall replace HGD among the currently airings? I think I will give both On Air and Who Are You a try. And of course, Three Dads, too.
I promise to reply to all the replies since I've been away by tomorrow...
