A Sad Love Story

Sad Love Story/ Sad Sonata

Cast:
Kwon Sang Woo
Kim Hee Sun
Yeon Jeong Hoon

A story about love, friendship, and music. Hae In is blind. She does her best to live her life in blindness. Kids often tease Hae In and performed mean acts to her. One day Jun Young meets Hae In on a playground. Jun Young becomes Hae In's defender and he starts to care for her because she is so fragile. Their friendship blossoms into love. Hae In moves away to the United States and leaves Jun Young behind. They promise to find one another again.

This series took me the longest to finish. I can do a marathon of this series since I bought it 2 weeks ago and really make adjustments for watching what I want. But in this drama, I failed to do so. There's too much pain in my heart, believe it or not. Watching it reminds me of "Stairway to Heaven", aside from Kwon Sang Woo joining the cast in the latter. I was actually comparing the two. There are a lot of similar scenes: lovers in the snow, the girl won't recognize her loved one, hospital and operations, lovers running after each other, playing the martyr acts of self-sacrifice, etc. How the whole love story works is almost the same except that in here, Kwon Sang Woo (the lead actor role) mostly does the "giving-up/sacrificing part". The usual evil and misfortune that surrounds the lead actors in the series is also the common "separating the two lovers" thing. The difference between the misfortunes of the pair of Seo Jun Young-Park Hae In (Kwon Sang Woo and Kim Hee Sun) from that of Cha Song Ju-Han Jung Suh (Stairway to Heaven) is that the misfortunes experienced by the latter is mostly induced by people who tries to break them apart. In Sad Love Story, it is really the big word "fate" that made the ending for the both of them.


Seo Jun Young and Park Hae In

The title says it all. It's a sad love story, so expect a really, really sad ending. I find it a little bit usual, though. The lines "We will meet again in the next life. Wait for me" are so melancholy-inducing lines that one used so many times already.

There are some drastic events that quite need some explanation like "How the hell did the bad boy (Jun Young's mortal enemy since childhood), become successful?" I also disliked how the woman is represented in the drama. Park Hae In is so weak (Well, almost all Korean soaps portray this image of women). Oftentimes she feels bored and useless (all she did was knit and play the piano). But the ultimate "loathing characteristic" of hers is being fickle-minded. I hate her character. I hate it whenever she would decide to go back to Jun Young and she would kneel in front of Geon Woo, feel sorry and ask for forgiveness and then the next thing that happens is she is preparing for her engagement to Geon Woo. I was not satisfied with the comic relief that the drama tries to attain (with the characters of the Charlie (bald guy), nagging wife, unprofitable husband, the aunt of Hae In, Jin Pyo (friend of Jun Young and Geon Woo) and a bunch of girls from the club). I deem it was necessary to maintain emotional balance in the series, but it was all in vain. The drama is swarmed with grief and sadness, there's no way to go or to do other than feel sorry for the characters and sympathize with them. I am telling you, this drama is one of those that give you emotional torture.


Collage


I like the parts where in there was major visual treat when Kwon Sang Woo plays the guitar, the piano and tries to sing. I salute him for being a talented actor. I admire how he can cry in a scene that easily. Just observe how "drippy" his tears can get (perhaps because of how small his eyes are). Yeon Jeong Hoon also has an endurable performance especially during his "America/studying days". His English and his voice are so great that if I was the one who makes decision in the company, I would've hired him and gave him a record deal right away. But too late, Hae In's cockroach-sounding voice, accent and pronunciation prevailed and were the keys to secure interviews and photo shoots.


kwon sang woo as seo jun young


Best friends' Geon Woo (right) and Jun Gi (left)

I don't like the excessive regressing parts while a sentimental song is playing in the drama. It kills me. The 20 episodes could have been chopped into a shorter one without those redundant "in the past" scenes. Every time that would happen, it is like watching the music video for the song over and over again.

But hey, I still endured the series even if it caused me to sleep for only two hours (I tried to finish 6 episodes for a day), not have breakfast and lunch and to miss Kris Aquino and James Yap's exclusive interview in The Buzz. I thought this series would be a better way to escape from the suffocating world of Pinoy entertainment. I am glad I wasn't that disappointed.



Kwon Sang Woo also as Choi Jun Kyu

Love Story in Harvard

Love Story

Cast:
Kim Rae Won
Kim Tae Hee
Lee Jung Jin

Okay, the title is kind of simple, uncomplicated and direct. Another love triangle story (which, by now, ought to be expected by all Koreanovela-aficionados). The only difference is the setting which by the way, encompasses some good academic places in America (trivia: The production company of "Love Story in Harvard" couldn't get permission to film on the actual Harvard campus. Harvard is known to not allow filming on school grounds so their next best option was Southern California. Most of the filming seems to have been done in the USC area and some scenes were filmed at UCLA). The seasonal time is spring so the cinematography is quite vibrant. The actors are all a visual feast for both men and women: Kim Tae Hee, Kim Rae Won and the alluring vile character of Lee Jung Jin. It was a good story after all, despite some unresolved loopholes in the story such as "What happened to Jung Min's (Lee Jung Jin) revenge-seeking plan for Kim Hyun Woo's (Kim Rae Won) father?" There are some abrupt and quite transition-lacking moments like Hyun Woo's father succumbing to the marriage of the two lovers and even why Lee Soo In (Kim Tae Hee) chose Hyun Woo ahead of Jung Min? I still want to know what was her basis of choosing the former guy over this deliciously rich hunk, when she said from the very start that she is not interested in anyone of the two. The positive edge of the series that makes it worthy to be watched from the start until end was the aim of the story to project and tackle the core of two most respectable and remarkable professions: law and medicine.


Love Story in Harvard


Love Story in Harvard 2


The three characters are all Harvard students (and eventually graduates), so the more that the story becomes as enthralling as it can be. Of course, their English was terrible. I cannot believe how they all graduated and survived Harvard and America (and the fact that Hyun Woo and Jung Min were the outstanding students in Professor Keynes' class). It was pure laugh trip. Anyhow, I think the moral of the story is good. There is sense in why this and that happened. There was this scene where a terror and mortifying professor in Harvard talked about a novel called "Utopia" which represents lawyers as insects that produce evil, it was a foreshadowing of what the story can go to as it progresses with the characters' lives. The message that the director and the script writer was trying to achieve was simple: the essence of our existence in the world. It may be in a way, a shallow interpretation of our being through knowing the purpose of our living in this world, but it was achieved in the end. I like the part where Lee Soo In was convincing Hyun Woo not to drop the case even if it means sacrificing her own life. "There is death in living, but there is also life in death." The story also gives some little (I guess if not adequate) hope for all the love-seeking creatures in the world, that there is really a genuine and unconditional love and that the world is not a hopeless place after all. I like it when Hyun Woo said to Soo In "This is the moment where we love the least. As we grow old, my love for you will have grown, too. By that time, it will be so great that we both might not even bear it." The only part of the series that I didn't like was the fairytale-like ending (which was expected from the start). Everything went good. I was expecting for some "sacrifices" and "evil" to interlude but there was none. I hope life can be easy and happy as what the story tries to project.

For more character info: http://lovestory.kdramas.info/cast.html