thoughts: Heartstrings (Korean)
(넌 내게 반했어 - Neon Naege Banhesseo)
You've Fallen For Me
Jung Yong Hwa as Lee Shin
Park Shin Hye as Lee Gyu Won
Song Chang Ui as Kim Suk Hyun
So I Yeon as Jung Yoon Soo
Woori as Han Hee Joo
Kang Min Hyuk as Yeo Joon Hee
With the ending of Heartstrings, of course, comes a whole new review
post full of spoilers and personal opinions formed from various matters
occuring, even within this simple college love story.
Because this post includes a lot of spoilers and may ruin the series'
fresh viewing experience, a warning is now being issued to proceed with
caution. For a shorter, less revealing article about Heartstrings,
check out the related introductory post: intro info - Heartstrings.
If you don't like spoilers, I would suggest reading that one first for
summary info and brief thoughts about Heartstrings by this blogger.
Heartstrings is a series that follows Lee Shin and Lee Gyu Won through
their trials and tribulations (if you can even really call it that) as
they meet, greet, and fall in love. Of course, their course isn't as
simple as falling for each other instantaneously; however, their story
isn't as complicated as a Romeo and Juliet melodrama either (although it
could have been). The series begins as a simple college love story
waiting to blossom and up to the very end, it remains a simple college
love story developing into a happy ending.
My only complaints about the series include: 1) the sudden male ego trip
that Lee Shin goes through at the end of the series that brings up the
age-old soapbox of irritation that I try not to storm into too regularly
-- although it may be addressed in another article at some other point
in time; and 2) the fact that the story line sort of loses it's "go
power" mid-way through the latter half of the series making it feel more
like a "when is this story ending" type of deal rather than a "I can't
wait to see what happens next" type of anticipation.
The backdrop of Heartstrings surrounds music and depicts the musical
performance that comes as the most important event to occur for the
university of fine arts students.
Jung Yong Hwa and Park Shin Hye release all of their charm and acting
charisma for this sweet and fun series from beginning to end, presenting
their characters in all their glory.
Lee
Gyu Won is portrayed by Park Shin Hye as a bubbly, head-strong, sweet
and duty-bound normal girl. Raised by her grandfather to respect and be
influenced by traditional Korean music, Gyu Won really knows nothing
else about the life around her. Because she loves and respects her
grandfather, Gyu Won is hard pressed to do anything that will upset him,
because ever since her father was kicked out of the home, there is no
one else around to take care of the old, stubborn fool of a man, Lee
Dong Jin.
On
a side note, despite his stubborn traditional ways, Lee Dong Jin is
actually a rather adorable, interesting, and entertaining grandfather
figure. His relationship with Gyu Won really isn't as bad as it might
have seemed and his way of caring about her is fairly different from
even a tough parent. He worries about her and does his share of
housework as well as spends his time fretting about Gyu Won's future in
traditional music, playing the large stringed gayageum. He even goes
all the way to the university to cheer Gyu Won on with her competition
against Lee Shin's band, The Stupid; and then he shows up to the musical
despite his dislike for it and claiming time after time that he would
not bother with anything related to Western music.
He gives into Gyu Won time and time again, allowing her to do as she
pleases, and forgiving her despite her blatant disobedience to his
demands. Even though he openly treats her with loud commands and
slave-driving force, it is all in his form of expressing his love and
care. It basically comes down to, "You are Lee Dong Jin's
granddaughter. If you're going to do something I don't approve of, you
better make sure you be the best, no matter what."
It is a strange one, the relationship between Gyu Won and her
grandfather, but it is also one that makes for a heart-warming trait in
the series. As far as Lee Dong Jin goes, in spite of his stubbornness, I
really did enjoy his presence and the series wouldn't have been the
same without him.
Back to Gyu Won, despite her intended description as a plain and
unattractive girl, I'm sure that no one in their right mind would
believe the presence of Park Shin Hye to be unattractive. While Gyu Won
seems to be a carbon-copy created character for Park Shin Hye, there is
no doubt that the actress gives the role her own adorable spin and
charm that brings Lee Gyu Won into the limelight readily. There is a
certain charm that Park Shin Hye possess that makes it hard not to
follow her closely in her role as Lee Gyu Won, and makes her a readily
loveable main female protagonist. The onscreen presence of Park Shin
Hye is something to reckon with and in the future, I have high hopes
that she will become a big hit no matter where she goes.
Lee
Shin is a cold-hearted (supposedly), indifferent guitarist and singer.
As his biological father notes, the life of a musician is a lonely one,
which is what it seems that Lee Shin is trying to project to the
audience as well as his fellow college mates. He does what he wants and
doesn't bother to care about anyone else, speaking little and ignoring
what he wants to ignore. Jung Yong Hwa pulls off this personality quite
well, being his second series in a major role; instead of acting out
the charming and sweet princely character that his debut in You're
Beautiful is loved for, he manages to do a complete one-eighty with Lee
Shin and simply act out a jerk face without a care in the world.
And so it is no surprise that Shin and Gyu Won start off on the wrong
foot with one another starting from episode one. Gyu Won plays witness
to his arrogance when he rudely rejects a girl asking him out, telling
her simply that he doesn't like "ugly girls." Even I had thought, "Ouch, that was harsh." He even goes on to call Gyu Won an "ugly girl" as well and I was shocked that anyone,
even in the fictional world, would call a woman like Park Shin Hye
"ugly." And so, no doubt, it was definitely NOT love at first sight for
these two. Because even with Gyu Won's attempts at being a civil and
sincerely kind person towards Shin, he doesn't reciprocate and continues
to treat her like dirt; even after he starts to warm up to her a little
bit due to their little master-slave contract.
Of course, Shin is the type who can't seem to figure out his own
feelings anyway. He's obsessed with being in love with the dance
professor, Jung Yoon Soo, who has hinted time and time again that she
doesn't want him acting that way. She claims that his love for her is
more like having pity for an injured animal than anything else and so
even the viewers wonder: did Shin really harbor real feelings of love
for this woman like he claimed? Because after meeting with Gyu Won and
slowly letting her grow on him, he seems to very easily switch his
heart's direction towards the bubbly girl. He's pretty easily moved by
her confession as well as her declaration to him that she will forget
and move on when he doesn't reciprocate her feelings. He starts to look
for her all the time, wondering how she's doing and worrying that she's
struggling with her feelings. And then eventually, he starts to fall
for her.
Lee Shin might have been attracted to Jung Yoon Soo in the beginning,
but before he even moved on from the dance professor, he'd already
slowly allowed Gyu Won into his heart, even if he wouldn't admit it.
Because throughout their hostile relationship, he still seems to find
the time to look for Gyu Won or think about how he will tease her or the
like. For an indifferent guy like Lee Shin, to even put that much
effort into another person is a rather significant feat.
In a sense, it could really be said that Lee Shin's feelings for Jung
Yoon Soo really were just a simple child's crush for a woman he couldn't
have. They weren't strong enough that he could smile so warmly at the
thought of Gyu Won's strange and petty actions like claiming that she'd
spit in his coffee.
And so, even as it is evident that our main couple is none other than
Lee Shin and Lee Gyu Won, the series does a rather good job of laying
the foundation for their eventual getting together plot. The fact that
they come together as "frenemies" who bicker all the time, then as Gyu
Won harboring a crush on Lee Shin, then onto being awkward friends, and
finally lovers... It just seemed like a really natural process.
The rest of the characters and their side plots play off rather nicely,
but seemed like they were just a bunch of anecdotes that didn't quite
know where they were headed. And so before things could become more
complicated for anyone else, a considerate resolution was presented to
them, courtesy of the ALMIGHTY DIRECTOR AND HIS WRITERS.
Kim
Suk Hyun, played by Song Chang Ui, is a former alumn of the series'
university, a man who has returned to his country after a successful run
as a director for Broadway musicals. He has been asked to return to
the college and help put together the 100th Anniversary Celebration
performance. Using his name, apparently, will bring in the fame and
really good sponsors. Opposite him is So I Hyeon's Jung Yoon Soo, the
dance professor and choreographer for the celebration performance.
Very early on, we discover that these two have an untold, melancholic
past wherein Jung Yoon Soo, due to her pursuance of her dreams, leaves
Kim Suk Hyun to go to New York. Of course, then she comes into a bad
accident and ends up coming home to teach at the university. But
because of her abandonment, the now Broadway director has been harboring
ill-met feelings of hostility towards her, even rewriting the
celebration performance to mirror the history between the two of them
just to humiliate her. This hostility between the two seem as if there
requires an act of god to fix since neither of the two are willing to
talk things over despite still having feelings for one another.
But then that act of god (a la the ALMIGHTY DIRECTOR) really DOES
step in and has Suk Hyun forgiving Yoon Soo out of the blue and asking
her if they could start their love story all over again. She agrees and
the two start seeing each other as a more matured version of the love
story, wherein Yoon Soo will take a level-headed stance on their
relationship so as not to screw things up with Suk Hyun again. And so
it seems that no matter what happens with our beloved Director, Yoon Soo
is willing to stick it out with him, standing by his side to support
him. Even the rumors that are spread about him and Gyu Won don't do
anything to destroy this newly reformed perfect romance. And from then
onward, their relationship continues to progress in a very stable
fashion without unnecessary complications or the like.
It
is a very refreshing concept in terms of the drama land romance genre.
Once they got together, these two just stayed together and it was nice.
Granted, it probably wouldn't have made much of a difference if they'd
hated each other at the beginning or not since their relationship sails
smoothly for the rest of the series. This is a striking contrast to a
lot of different young romances which allows both sides to easily let go
of their anger and their misunderstandings so that they could be
together once again; the adult way of handling a relationship, no doubt
and allowing for none of that BIG MISUNDERSTANDING turning point,
even though there were hintings at a possible complicated "love
rectangle" between this couple an the main couple.
In
a way, even though the series kept trying to hint at that complicated
love rectangle, I'm glad that it was easily dropped and forgotten.
There was no need for a strange Kim Suk Hyun/Lee Gyu Won/Lee Shin mix up
at all. Kim Suk Hyun's interest in Gyu Won remained strictly
professional -- he saw her as the next big hit in musicals and that was
all.
To the rest of the school, to Gyu Won, and even to Lee Shin, Kim Suk
Hyun was merely the mature and wise Broadway director who would mentor
and lead them through one anecdote in their lives. At first, while he
seemed like he would be an arrogant man who thought he was good stuff
just because he'd come back from Broadway fame, his encouragement, his
actions and his words were actually really rational and professional.
He knew what he wanted and he knew how to treat the "kids" in order to
have progress in their goal rather than causing problems.
Of course, his talent doesn't go without complications. And so we can
see that, whether as young teenagers, adolescent college students, or
even full blown adults of society, there are always petty jealousies and
the tendency to use back-handed methods just to get rid of what you
don't like. Im Tae Joon's role was very apparently the failure of an
antagonist to Kim Suk Hyun who seems adamant that things should not be
left up to the Broadway director if he has anything to do with it. But
time and time again, his methods seem to be blown off, and aside from
the Gyu Won/Suk Hyun scandal, nothing else he does seems to work and he
eventually has to admit defeat to someone's who has always ousted him in
his own department.
 |
| "He's just like a puppy!" - Cha Bo Eun |
Yeo Joon Hee, played by Kang Min Hyuk who is a fellow
C.N. Blue member alongside Jung Yong Hwa, also plays the role of a
drummer in the college band. He is friends with Lee Shin and
encompasses an adorably fun character with an appetite that can never be
quenched. Of course, his character's existence, aside from looking
pretty and being cute, is rather flat and insignificant. I'm sure rabid
fangirls out there will disagree with me, but the fact of the matter
is, what does this guy actually contribute to the series by being in
random scenes where he's reciting strange poems and crushing on Han Hee
Joo? I agree that he is a very adorable, puppy-like boy and I enjoy
every scene that he's in. And maybe his existence is to help counter
Han Hee Joo's selfish, rude, arrogant, spoiled personality and turn her
into a better person. He certainly DOES manage to slowly change Han Hee
Joo's heart as he persistently wiggles his way into her life, showing
her the friendship and care that she's probably never seen before.
But ultimately, there's nothing else that he does, which very easily
renders him as a very minor supporting character. Because even Han Hee
Joo (Woori) has a much more significant presence than he does -- her
homework is to allow the character to develop and grow into a nicer
person. Yeo Joon Hee, on the other hand, starts off as an adorable
puppy and ends off as an adorable puppy with the same sweet, friendly,
and strange personality from beginning until ending.
Moving onto Han Hee Joo, I will definitely say that this girl has, tacked on her forehead, "A List of Reasons Why You Should Hate Me."
It's very blatantly obvious why she has no friends and why so many
girls talk about her behind her back. As the school board director's
daughter, she is arrogant and rude, looks down on almost everyone else,
and truly believes that she's better at what she does than anyone else
in the school. And she's petty too, using meaningless prattle to try to
put other people down, but ultimately making herself look kind of
stupid.
And so it's not very clear to me why Joon Hee falls in love with her so
unhesitatingly. Is it because she's pretty? Because she was a dancing
goddess when he first saw her? Does love at first sight really work
like that? And even if so, wouldn't her personality eventually repulse
even the strongest of men? Or is this something that men actually like
to be around? Or maybe it IS just Yeo Joon Hee's strange taste in
women...
I don't really get it. She certainly didn't win ME over. But then
again, I'm not a young, naive, hormone raging boy. No offense to the
Yeo Joon Hee lovers, but I'm afraid there's a bit of judgement
impairment in his choice of female suitors. Granted, she DOES redeem
herself by the end of the series, but throughout the entirety of the
beginning of the series, I couldn't really find anything about her that I
liked, except for maybe her undying determination to be the best. But
even THAT I ended up finding rather annoying.
Her case against Gyu Won was actually pretty reasonable, though, since
it's true that she's worked hard her entire life to see her dream
through, whereas Gyu Won's intended contribution to the celebration
performance was merely in the music area to begin with. And then
suddenly she gets thrown into the acting division to take away what she
never really wanted in the first place. But then I thought, who is Han
Hee Joo to decide who's worthy of being in the acting division and who's
not? So my one attempt at finding something about Han Hee Joo that I
could admire was dropped heavily into the ocean.
Because Gyu Won was right: Han Hee Joo worked hard to attain her dreams,
but she's not the only one who has worked hard. And so her consistent
attempts at putting Gyu Won down were simply without rationale and kind
of futile anyway, making her seem more like a fool than anything else.
I think the last straw for me and my attempts at finding something to
like about Han Hee Joo were broken when she used Joon Hee to help secure
her position as main female lead and to get rid of Gyu Won from the
performance altogether. Joon Hee is an innocent boy who really only
wants to love and be loved by his "Natasha" goddess. Even though I
don't know why he started liking Han Hee Joo in the first place, there's
no questioning that as he continued to pursue her, he began to admire
her strong determination and her hard work and her passion for the arts.
Joon Hee is a kind young man with a very, very good heart, but because
he thought that he would get Han Hee Joo into trouble, he agreed to lie
for her, telling people that he was not with her on that fated day that
the students were to perform for the sponsors. Han Hee Joo, being
lured away by Joon Hee's kindness and lots of "non-fattening" foods,
misses the practice performance showing, allowing Gyu Won to shine in
front of all the people. And so she is even more determined to get rid
of Gyu Won, and in order to do that, no one could find out that she'd
snuck away with Joon Hee and had her phone turned off.
And so she goes and tells him to lie for her, not even bothering to tell
him that because of this, very dire consequences would come to take
place. And so when Joon Hee realizes the seriousness of the situation,
he begins to feel guilty and stressed out about it. It is even
described that he has stopped eating -- for him, the stress was really
just too much to cause him to lose his appetite like that.
How
can you possibly let such a sweet and pretty boy go through this kind
of trauma? He's an innocent and he doesn't deserve to be made into a
guilty party like that. How could anyone stand to watch as the poor guy
stops eating like he normally does and is constantly conflicted over
his own little lie? I would never be able to watch such an innocent
puppy look depressed and traumatized by his own guilty actions.
And so despite her repentance by the end of the series wherein she
merely stops being a rude and bratty girl, I still can't really forgive
her for what she did to Joon Hee. He may like her a lot, but I don't
really harbor any feelings of like in this girl at all.
But of course, just like the rest of the series' side plots, this little
side romance is resolved rather flatly. Basically, Han Hee Joo just
grows accustomed to having Joon Hee around and is touched by his
constant kindness towards her. And then the two unofficially get
together. Case closed.
Han Hee Joo's mother suddenly has the need to admit that she'd been too
hard on her about being the best and being the most popular girl. This
really came out of nowhere. Im Tae Joon, the guy who was causing all
the rumors and wanting to get Kim Suk Hyun out of the picture suddenly
just stops trying to make trouble and accepts defeat and so along with
him the rest of the professors admit their defeat as well. But this is
never really shown and is actually assumed when no one tries to fight
Kim Suk Hyun's ideals about the celebration performance anymore. Hyun
Gi Young's stage fright tendencies were solved before the series even
started rolling and there were no signs of relapsing for him, so really,
was that anecdote even necessary to appear in the series at all?
Lee Dong Jin stops opposing Gyu Won's desire to do something else with
her life rather than playing the gayageum because Grandfather wants her
to. This happens because Shin's younger sister has a sudden interest in
traditional music and so Grandfather decides to raise a whole new
apprentice, finally giving up on his own granddaughter. And so all is
forgiven and fixed.
Jung Yong Hwa as Lee Shin
is
a South Korean musician, singer-songwriter and actor. Jung made his
show business debut as “Kang Shin-woo” in the Korean drama You're
Beautiful on 7 October 2009 and played the male lead as “Lee Shin” in
the 2011 drama Heartstrings. Jung is the leader, lead vocalist and rhythm guitarist of the rock band CN Blue. 
Park Shin-hye as Lee Gyu Won is a South Korean actress, singer and promotional model.
She debuted in the 2003 music video "Ggot" . She is best known for the
roles of "Go Mi Nam" in the television drama You're Beautiful and "Lee
Gyu Won" in the 2011 drama Heartstrings. She attends Chung-Ang University.
Song Chang Ui as Kim Suk Hyun
is a South Korean
actor best known for winning the Excellence Award for Best Actor for his
role as doctor Yang Tae-Sub in the SBS weekend drama Life is Beautiful.
In 2005, he appeared in the film My Girl and I with Cha Tae-hyun and
Song Hye-kyo. In 2011, he played stage director Kim Suk Hyun in Heartstrings also known as You've Fallen for Me
Titre Original: 넌 내게 반했어 (Heartstrings) 
