Okay, so I promised I'd make a list, and make a list I have, as I hinted at in my last blog, my number 2 favourite drama, a Korean one this time, is Coffee Prince. Coffee Prince is a very highly rated Korean drama, which leads a lot of people to assume that it is a trashy drama like Boys Over Flowers, another crazily successful K-drama. But it is a big mistake to discount coffee prince. Whereas other dramas involve cross-dressing to add to a comedy storyline, coffee prince is all heart, with a touch of comedy.
Despite what is a crazy storyline, coffee prince somehow manages to make it seem plausible, or at least I found I didn't strike me as fake. The series follows Go Eun Chan, a delivery girl who is chronically mistaken for a delivery boy, causing much awkwardness when she enters the ladies baths to deliver lunches. She is even used by her sister to shake off unwanted suitors by implying that Go Eun Chan is her boyfriend. When Choi Han Kyul meets Go Eun Chan after believing she was involved in the robbery of his friend (and love-interest)Han Yoo Joo, he makes the same mistake.
Initially he hires Eun Chan to act as his gay lover in order to sabotage marriage meetings set up by his mother and grandmother, and later, Eun Chan becomes employed at Choi Han Kyul's new coffee shop 'Coffee Prince' where only 'princes' (good looking males, basically) are employed.
The drama follows the friendships of Eun Chan and her fellow princes, as well as her relationship with Han Kyul. In the meantime, Han Kyul still suffers from an unrequieted love with Yoo Joo, who has a tumultuous relationship with Han Kyul's cousin, Choi Han Seong. To spice things up further, Eun Chan coincidentally forms a friendship with Choi Han Seong, who she meets on a delivery run, the only person to recognise from the begining that Eun Chan is in fact a girl.
As what can only be called a love square heats up, realtionships struggle and hearts change, Han Kyul gradually realises his feeling for Eun Chan and is forced to confront the idea that he is homosexual.
Whilst Yoon Eun Hye actually plays a convincing male as Go Eun Chan (so much so that I kind of wanted her to actually be a male...), the real star of the piece is Gong Yoo's Han Kyul, whose incredible ability to convey his emotions through the camera had me in tears more than once. Even though I was initially skeptical about Gong Yoo's abilities, by the end of the series I just wanted to hug him. A lot. Far far too much.
Basically, whereas I love Hana Kimi for the craziness and funniness, Cofee Prince I love for its realness (as strange as that sounds, since objectively, it's still very ridiuclous storyline wise) and cuteness.
All in all, if you do not fall in love with the character Han Kyul, you are a cold-hearted stone gargoyle.
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