Boys Over Flowers 꽃보다 남자 is the sixteenth drama I've seen. Boys Over Flowers is the Korean adaptation of the Taiwanese drama Meteor Garden and the original Japanese drama Hana Yori Dango. All three dramas are based on the Japanese manga of the same name. I was pretty excited to see that Goo Hye Sun was the main female lead. I had seen her work in old music videos for YG Entertainment artists such as 'The Reason I Close My Eyes 내가 눈을 감는 이유" sung by Taebin of 1TYM. I had realized I had never seen any movie or drama with Goo Hye Sun and was looking forward to Boys Over Flowers. Of course, I had heard that this drama was well hyped in Korea and several of my friends were also watching this series.
Geum Jandi (Goo Hye Sun) is an ordinary girl whose family owns a dry cleaners near Shinhwa College. Shinhwa College is a prestigious school owned by the Shinhwa Group, known for only having rich students. While on an errand, she saves a Shinhwa student from committing suicide after being bullied excessively. The media is informed of the incident, causing citizens all over the country to voice their opinion. "What's so great about that school? Just because you're rich doesn't mean you're a better person." In order to quiet down the publicity, Shinhwa College gives Jandi a scholarship and allows her to attend the school. However, the students are not accepting of the idea of allowing such poor and average student to attend their school. Jandi manages to make a friend, but only to find herself confronting four students known as F4. The four boys that make up F4 are rich, spoiled and even a little arrogant. Jandi declares war on the leader of F4, Goo Joonpyo (Lee Min Ho). Now Jandi is marked for harassment by the whole school, just like the student she saved from suicide earlier. Jandi's situation gets interesting when she starts to fall for the quiet F4 member, Yoon Jihoo (Kim Hyun Joong) who is kind towards Jandi. It gets even more complicated for Jandi when Joonpyo gets so attached to bullying her, that he doesn't realize he's falling for her.
Goo Hye Sun is an amazing actress. She does a fantastic job with the various expressions Jandi has. My favorite one is whenever she pouts because she thinks the way the other female students fawn over F4. Still, I admit I was a little disappointed with how much different Goo Hye Sun looked with short hair. I understand that she was portraying a high school student and short hair actually made her seem like a teenager. Yet, I was still disappointed because I knew that she's actually really beautiful with long hair. Sure, blame it on me for being a typical guy who likes girls with long hair. It's this kind of thinking that led my entire focus on the drama to Kim So Eun's role as Jandi's best friend Gaeul. Kim So Eun received the Best New Actress Award at the 2009 KBS Drama Awards, proving that she wasn't just a pretty face, but also a really great actress. Still, it blows my mind to know we're a couple months apart in age. Aside from Kim So Eun, my other focus was also on Lee Min Jung and her role as Ha Jae Kyung. Her overall role was minor in Boys Over Flowers, but I noticed her acting talent and beauty right away. She seemed like an actress I should look out for in her future work. Despite my dislike for the Goo Joonpyo character, Lee Min Ho should get credit for how well he acted. Not a fan of the curly hair perm, but he really gave off that rich boy attitude. Still, I never would of guessed my opinion would drastically change after watching City Hunter.
A drama as popular as Boys Over Flowers meant that I was hearing songs from the series a lot. I actually laughed when I heard a friend's phone ringtone and I immediately recognized the song as T'Max's "Paradise". Shinee's "Stand By Me" was another song that became popular with the drama. Also, both these songs are usually heard as background music for a number of variety shows.
Sad to say, I did not enjoy this drama as much as my friends did. I felt this drama was clearly targeted for the female audience. Boys Over Flowers is not a terrible drama either. All the actors and actresses are quite talented and the drama successfully won many awards. I also feel that I continued to watch this drama simply to be informed of any pop culture reference to this drama in the future. I have not seen either the Taiwanese version (Meteor Garden) or the Japanese version (Hana Yori Dango). A proper evaluation would include a comparison to these other versions. Still, there's no denying the impact Boys Over Flowers has made on Korean pop culture. There were many parodies made on the concept of F4, such as a middle-aged or female F4. I recommend watching this drama, but for guys there's a chance you won't find it particularly exciting.
