After working on my most recent article for ATK Magazine, I came to the sudden realization that, despite my undying love for Jung Yong Hwa, I had somehow missed writing any sort of review for Heartstrings. Appalled by my own negligence, I vowed to feature Yong Hwa’s second drama as this week’s “Friday Night Drama”.
Originally airing on MBC from June to August, 2011, Heartstrings is a romantic melodramady all about the love, friendship and dreams of a group of students at a performing arts college. While the story involves multiple characters, it focuses particularly on Lee Shin (Jung Yong Hwa) and Lee Gyu Won (Park Shin Hye). Lee Shin, a Western music major known around campus for his good looks, cold personality and undying passion for music. The lead singer/guitarist of one of the school’s most well-known bands, The Stupid, Lee Shin is the object of many girls’ desire but his prickly personality keeps most of them at bay. At the opposite end of the spectrum, Lee Gyu Won is a bubbly, outgoing major in Traditional music who, being born into a prestigious family with a grand legacy in traditional music, is forced to try to live up to the ridiculously high expectations of her grandfather. As one would expect from a K-Drama rom-com, Lee Shin and Gyu Won butt heads on multiple occasions before they realize their dislike of each other is actually an act to hide their growing attraction. As the story progresses, the ups and downs of college life, combined with a fair amount of crazy jealousy from others, force Lee Shin and Gyu Won into some pretty tough spots but their trials only help to focus their priorities and drive them to achieve their dreams.
As far as feel-good tales of youth go, Heartstrings is a really good one. The story is entertaining and moves along at a decent pace, the protagonist characters are sweet and likable and fellow CNBLUE member, Kang Min Hyuk is absolutely adorable, while the antagonistic characters are about as spoiled, selfish and unlikable as they come. There’s enough conflict to keep things interesting without trapping you in the unhappy land of constant table flipping and the reunification of Jung Yong Hwa and Park Shin Hye was for many (myself included), the lovely pairing we’d all hoped for, but never got, in You’re Beautiful. To add to the list of positives, the music in Heartstrings is absolutely fantastic and the modern/traditional rendition of “Habanera” from Georges Bizet’s opera, Carmen, is one of my all-time favorite pieces to come from a musically themed drama.
Being a fan of both Yong Hwa and sappy, feel-good dramas, I enjoyed Heartstrings but I cannot, in good conscience, give this drama the rave reviews I’d like to give it because there is one point where this drama left me sadly disappointed. If you’re reading this and you’ve already watched this drama, I’m sure you know exactly what I’m about to say but for those of you who haven’t taken the time to watch Heartstrings yet, let me tell you here and now, the final kiss in this drama is absolutely, without a doubt, hands-down the WORST kiss ever in the history of Drama Land and I’m not even exaggerating. (To give you some point of reference, this kiss makes the final kiss in Pretty Man look like a burning kiss of passion and we all know how lame-sauce that kiss was!) After watching fifteen episodes of Yong Hwa and Park Shin Hye being all cutesie and lovey-dovey, you expect this series to end on a final kiss, it’s kind of Drama Land law, but this kiss is so depressingly disappointing you almost wish Lee Shin and Gyu Won would break up. Seriously, it’s that bad.
Though the final kiss of Heartstrings may leave you throwing things at your computer, the rest of the drama is enjoyable enough and certainly worth your time. Of course there’s always the possibility that I enjoyed this drama simply because it gave me fifteen hours to drool over Yong Hwa so I want to know what you think. Did you enjoy Heartstrings or was it just too fluffy for you? What about that final kiss? Was it really as bad as I say it was or am I being a bit melodramatic? I’d love to know what you’re thinking so be sure to leave me a comment below!
I LOVE Heartstrings and I still re-watch it from time to time cos it’s just such a sweet and light summer drama with fantastic OST. I especially love Yong Hwa’s composition Because I Miss You and the scene where he was crying in the rain after his dad died. On the final kiss, yes it was unsatisfactory. Even his light peck on the professor’s lips had more feels than the ending kiss. Apart from this small imperfection, I would still recommend this drama, and so far all the people whom I’ve recommended this drama to all love it as well.
I agree about the kiss. I was very disappointed. This was my first kdrama, and I loved this enough to watch it with my daughter together and separately over 20 times. But the kiss left me feeling let down.
Dear Chingus,
Really love how you summary Heartstrings with positive list. That’s how I feel too but I could not speak out that brief, clear and and very much convincible like you did. I wish I could have your logic mind and good writing skills as your. Not just mind and skill, you also showed how you love Heartstrings and Dooley Couple. I even can see love in your disappointment from final kiss. Those encourage me to reply you.
Yes, with all the love we got from them, we could not help but expect a “burning final kiss” which can make us fly. We were ready to fly. What’s else the kiss can be if not deep passion one. At the moment someone just overcame “unhappy land”, just found the lost love after year time of suffering from withholding true feeling, who does not want to hug lover tightly and giving all in a long passionate kiss? That’s why I do understand how frustrated you were. I do feel the same somehow. But I write this reply mostly to share with you not the same but the difference in my thought regarding kisses from this drama, especially final one.
Yes, it’s me again who so far just talking “against” you with weird thought 🙂 And today I want to tell you that kiss is one of the main thing make Heartstrings so special to me. All kiss, especially final one are unforgettable for me. Those kisses are definitely awkward and unpassionate but I’ve found they’re very much “Lee Shin” (Yonghwa) and “Heartstrings”
– Awkward because Lee Shin is known as “narcissistic prince” who has been chased by many girls but less (can say no) experience in court a girl, who doesn’t know how (even doesn’t want) to express his inner. In other words, Lee Shin is a bold but shy and innocent boy who drastic but timid in love. Which kind of kiss is best suite for him then?
– Unpassionate because all of “successful” kisses (to professor, at Catharsis and final one) are just not simple to release his real passion. In my point of view they’re just a kind of strong statement from him. He wants to confirm to professor his love as a man when he kiss her. He wants to officially inform his community his dating. He wants to confirm to Gyu Won he is hers and she is his with the kiss in Catharsis. It’s the same for the final one which I would like to return later with one separate bullet.
– Awkward and unpassionate because Yonghwa is not professional actor. He brought himself to his character more than experienced actors do. This awkward shows the real off screen friendship between him and her. It may be not good in term of acting, but it really leaves good feeling in me
With this way of thinking, I found the final kiss was meant to
– Admit that he is still love her a lot
– Admit that he wants to have her again
– Express that she accepts his return
– Confirm that her love has no change after all
– Confirm they passed phrase of puppy love with all of happy and sorrows and move up to next level of lovers who will start real dating and thinking of sharing life from that momnent on.
So in my point of view, awkward and unpassionate kisses make me ask for more but in the other hand make me really feel the real pure love from college time, make me love Heartstring more than loving a good drama. I can find many burning kisses in many romantic drama, but I don’t think I can find any awkward and unpassionate kisses but from real feeling, not fake like I did find in Heartstrings. Heartstrings is a memory, yet the dream of youth and pure love when all passion make heart fluttering the most are from hand holding, staring and almost kisses.
Sorry for too long and weird expression. Still hope you can get me and love Heartstrings a little bit more 🙂
I love and appreciate that you took so much time to reply and everything you said makes perfect sense. I actually didn’t have any problem with Lee Shin’s side of that final kiss, it was Gyu Won’s lack of response that killed it for me. I completely understood Lee Shin’s approach to that last kiss but I get so frustrated with the unresponsive kisses from Park Shin Hye’s characters and it’s not just the Heartstrings kiss that bothers me. Every drama Park Shin Hye has ever been in, she’s been the girl who stands there, frozen in terror, as the guy she likes kisses her and that just gets old. I don’t care how good of a girl you are, when you’re in love and the boy you love kisses you, you have no problem kissing him back. At least that’s been my experience anyway. Haha. 😉
Thank you for patiently reading and sharing. Let me tell you some excuse i had made to overcome frustration from that last kiss 😉
Gyu Won’s excuse: she was so shy too and she might not know how to response such awkward kiss from him :))
Shinhye’s excuse : it seems she is said as not good kisser. As actress, this is her weakness. I admit that there is not much kiss scenes of her I have seen to comment on her acting skill in kissing. But what I had seen so far, writer and director used to put her in sudden kiss with unexpected circumstance which might underline her weakness.
My excuse (which I know you don’t mind,heheh): if I were in that case, being kissed by hot actors, it would be frozen,too. It takes me time to wait until my heart resume beating then enjoying his initiation before I can respond to follow his lead (blushing)
Just for fun 🙂