as if i needed anything to reaffirm my love for korean films
the wonderful pair of lim soojung (im a cyborg, tale of two sisters)
and gongyoo (coffee prince, one fine day)
made this film the perfect perfect choice last night when i really didnt
want to watch anything hard going.
it would be quite hard to describe their humour and chemistry and do
it any justice, but basically they made this movie so easy to watch that
i can safely say this one is a keeper. i will be watching this again.
bumbling, useless and honest to a fault, han gijoon (gongyoo) starts up his own
business 첫사랑 찾기 주식회사 "finding your first true love company"
and soon meets his first (unwilling) client seo jiwoo (lim soojung).
jiwoo had met her first love kim jongok (also played by gongyoo for some reason)
in india 10 years previous. fearful of unhappy endings, jiwoo never sees anything through to the end, always having the happier memories as a comfort blanket.
in a desperate hope to get her to move on, jiwoo's father takes her to the
first true love company and together with han gijoon she must find and face
her first true love again.
knowing very little about kim jongok the search begins and takes the unlikely pair
of jiwoo and han gijoon all over the place. her tomboy fierce defiance and his dorky clumsy openess make for a partnership of bickering and frustration to
begin with, but as they travel on they start to understand each other.
its a very cute film. its a bit stupid - they way lots of korean movies are - with
the silly humour and slapstick behaviour. the two leads are comfortably funny
with each other - i cant really explain that any other way. i love all the stupidity.
ryu seungsoo who plays han gijoon's brother in law was very funny aswell. his moments always made me laugh.
i really just think it is a very well produced film, lots of shiny nice colours, vivid but warpped hazy flash backs, random musical bits, aish and aigoos being thrown around left right and center,
and lots of nice dialogue about fate and destiny and love etc.
the way korean films often like to encompass all this without making you dizzy with sickly sweetness but instead filling up the would be cheesey moments with clumsy bumbling humour, is what i really adore about south korean cinema.
both lim soojung and gongyoo are truly adorkable throughout this movie.
its a very pretty film visually and its got some lovely cute moments
in amongst all the stupidity and clumsy behaviour of pretty much everyone.
ah and the end. i loved the end. its so cute how it all ties back in on itself.
great film.
so ive finally finished coffee prince. i held on to this series because i just didnt want it to end. i had three more episodes to go for ages and couldnt bring myself to end it untill a few days ago. i think starting gumiho was a good idea. its given me something else wonderful to move on to.
i loved coffee prince from the very start but it become one of my favourite series when i had got about half way through.
i watched the making of feature on coffee prince and saw yoon eunhye, who plays the female lead eunchan, in floods of tears saying something like "i dont wanna leave eunchan behind it'll drive me crazy" i think everyone felt the same. i certainly didnt want it to end. yoon eunhye is one of the most lovable fantastic actresses on the planet.
this is one of the most popular korean dramas parodied all over the place by comedians and pop bands like super junior and SHINee, SNSD etc
it has a wonderful soundtrack, two infact, and a stunning cast.
yoon eunhye - go eunchan gongyoo - choi hankyul lee sungyun - choi hansung chae jungahn - han yoojoo kim jaewook - no sunki kim dongwook - jin harim leeun - hwang minyeop kim changwan - manager hong gaesik kim youngok - hankyul's grandmother
best quote: from minyeop on first meeting sunki "why do i have to work with people like this? you cant tell if anyone is a boy or girl"
eunchan looks and acts like a boy. she has to take care of her mother and sister and as the breadwinner of the family she will do just about whatever she can to keep them above water.
through various rediculous circumstances she ends up becomming hankyul's pretend gay lover to help him avoid dates arranged by his grandmother, to cut a long story short - hankyul thinks she is a boy and ends up employing her as a waiter in his new coffee shop.
a lot happens in the first couple of episodes and all of a sudden there is a tight unit of bickering friends working at the 1st shop of coffee prince. the banter is so playful it sets the tone for the rest of the series.
also featuring in this drama are hankyul's cousin and his girlfriend who have had a long relationship which ended abruptly with her running off with some guy to another country. hansung is suddenly faced with yoojoo turning up again out of the blue and there is also the unfortunte problem of hankyul being in love with her too.
it sounds like its going to be all melodrama and over the top but all this is done with such playfulness it couldnt be further from that. i didnt really warm to yoojoo untill about episode 5 or 6, it takes a while to really understand where she is coming from. but that is the point.
the relationship between hansung and her is so loving and open - infact all the relationships between all the characters are like that. way they all talk to each other and banter is playful and warm but even when they argue the overriding honesty is what makes it so lovely to watch. i found myself countless times wishing people i knew spoke to each other with such honesty.
coffee prince is just a joy to watch. the constant teasing of everyone and the arguments ending in choruses of aish and aigoo over and over. its so funny. but also parts were hard to take aswell. watching hankyul go through the pain of liking a "boy" as he comes to love eunchan was really quite emotional and distressing. this guy is an amazing actor to convey so much with such tact my heart broke a few times even before the last third of the series.
by that point i also completely adored hansung and yoojoo, i'd say about half way through i started to really get their relationship and loved how frank they were with each other.
i also, by this point, started to really feel how all the characters fit together. it must have been perfectly cast as even though i know some of these actors from other things (kim changwan, kim jaewook and lee sungyun specifically) i really forgot all about who i had known them as before and saw them as their roles in this drama. kim jaewook has stated he believed they were all actually quite similar to their characters in lots of ways. if that is true it may be one of the reasons the really felt like the perfect bunch for the job.
there are so many reasons to love this drama. and i cant think of a single one not to. i was so scared to let this one end. i will be watching this again in a couple of years when ive forgotten the story and fall in love with them all, all over again.
eunchan and hansung hanging out as if they had known each other in a past life... hansung and yoojoo playing around like soulmates... hankyul and eunchan winding each other up mischieviously... hansung wandering around his beautiful house in his jogging trousers with bare feet- i love that... hankyul sucking up to his grandmother looking like a little boy... eunchan bickering with the other princes... sunki, harim, and minyeop being totally adorkable constantly... sunki speaking japanese all the time- aish i love it when koreans speak jp... so many reasons to love this brilliant drama.
and for all the pouting and everything else i forgot to mention there's all that too. (^_^)
