♥♥♥/♥♥
TITLE: To The Beautiful You [아름다운 그대에게]
ORIGINAL AIR DATE: 2012, August 15 - October 04
WIKI: asianwiki.com/To_The_Beautiful_You
SEASONS/EPISODES: 1 / 16
US AVAILABILITY (as of 2018-11-14): Viki (free w/ads), Kocowa (free w/ads)
ORIGINAL AIR DATE: 2012, August 15 - October 04
WIKI: asianwiki.com/To_The_Beautiful_You
SEASONS/EPISODES: 1 / 16
US AVAILABILITY (as of 2018-11-14): Viki (free w/ads), Kocowa (free w/ads)
Gu Jae Hee is a female highschool student on a mission to help her favorite athlete return to his sport. She's willing to do anything, no matter the cost, even it means leaving her family in America and moving back to Korea disguised as a boy in order to infiltrate said-athlete's all-boys'-school and figure out a way to help him. She fortuitously manages to get assigned as his roommate, but he's not very cooperative with even having a roomie, let alone starting up practice for the high jump again.
Basic summary:
Gu Jae Hee's father died and her mom moved to the US when she was 5 to remarry. Now Jae Hee is a highschool student and the person she admires most is Olympic high-jump medalist Kang Tae Joon. Tae Joon was reportedly injured and did not return to his sport, worrying the kindhearted Jae Hee. She disguises herself as a boy, transfers to Tae Joon's all-boys' school in South Korea, and sets out to convince and help him to return to his sport.
Gu Jae Hee's father died and her mom moved to the US when she was 5 to remarry. Now Jae Hee is a highschool student and the person she admires most is Olympic high-jump medalist Kang Tae Joon. Tae Joon was reportedly injured and did not return to his sport, worrying the kindhearted Jae Hee. She disguises herself as a boy, transfers to Tae Joon's all-boys' school in South Korea, and sets out to convince and help him to return to his sport.
After facing some minor hazing, and somehow managing to get assigned to the same dorm room as TaeJoon, JaeHee tries to juggle sports, school, new friends, and her angry antisocial project-roomie. She is befriended by the "happy virus" Cha Eun Gyul who shares the dorm room next to TaeJoon and JaeHee's with TaeJoon's high jump rival. EunGyul turns out to be a loyal friend, but he also finds himself inexplicably drawn to JaeHee in more than a friend way.
Meanwhile, JaeHee has barely managed to secure acceptance from TaeJoon as a room-mate. He seems on the verge of kicking her out every other minute. JaeHee's older step-brother is in town to speak at a lecture and of course wants to hang out with little sis. She poses as a student from a nearby girls' school for a day in order to convince him all is well. Unfortunately for all the work she puts into fooling him, he still finds out. TaeJoon accidentally overhears an argument between JaeHee and her Oppa in which big bro scolds her royally for posing as a boy and transferring to a boys' school and demands that she come home to America with him!
Feeling like the best option for all involved is to kick JaeHee out ASAP without letting her know he knows her secret, TaeJoon surprises himself when he changes his mind and chases after her to bring her back.
JaeHee puts her all into helping TaeJoon but a perpetual monkey wrench in her plans is TaeJoon's female childhood friend, a gymnast, who keeps sneaking into the dorm and trying to convince TaeJoon to date her. She knows something is "off" about JaeHee but she can't quite put her finger on it... yet.
Can JaeHee stay friends with EunGyul, help TaeJoon return to jumping, and avoid being found out?
Meanwhile, JaeHee has barely managed to secure acceptance from TaeJoon as a room-mate. He seems on the verge of kicking her out every other minute. JaeHee's older step-brother is in town to speak at a lecture and of course wants to hang out with little sis. She poses as a student from a nearby girls' school for a day in order to convince him all is well. Unfortunately for all the work she puts into fooling him, he still finds out. TaeJoon accidentally overhears an argument between JaeHee and her Oppa in which big bro scolds her royally for posing as a boy and transferring to a boys' school and demands that she come home to America with him!
Feeling like the best option for all involved is to kick JaeHee out ASAP without letting her know he knows her secret, TaeJoon surprises himself when he changes his mind and chases after her to bring her back.
JaeHee puts her all into helping TaeJoon but a perpetual monkey wrench in her plans is TaeJoon's female childhood friend, a gymnast, who keeps sneaking into the dorm and trying to convince TaeJoon to date her. She knows something is "off" about JaeHee but she can't quite put her finger on it... yet.
Can JaeHee stay friends with EunGyul, help TaeJoon return to jumping, and avoid being found out?
Flow and sequence:
Step 1: secure identity as a male student and room mate of TaeJoon.
Step 2: convince big brother not to take her away and do everything possible to get TaeJoon back on track to qualify for the Olympics again.
Step 3: Dodge a lot of potential problems, including a best friend who has begun to fall in love with her despite believing she's a boy, an old guy friend showing up to try to steal her away, and a certain overly suspicious and persistent gymnast who dislikes JaeHee near TaeJoon but doesn't have all the pieces just yet to understand WHY JaeHee makes all the warning bells in her head scream.
Step 4: wrap up life as a boy while the inevitable day draws nearer and nearer in which she'll likely be outed to everyone and have to leave in shame.
Step 2: convince big brother not to take her away and do everything possible to get TaeJoon back on track to qualify for the Olympics again.
Step 3: Dodge a lot of potential problems, including a best friend who has begun to fall in love with her despite believing she's a boy, an old guy friend showing up to try to steal her away, and a certain overly suspicious and persistent gymnast who dislikes JaeHee near TaeJoon but doesn't have all the pieces just yet to understand WHY JaeHee makes all the warning bells in her head scream.
Step 4: wrap up life as a boy while the inevitable day draws nearer and nearer in which she'll likely be outed to everyone and have to leave in shame.
Cast/ Characters/ Acting:
f(x) Sulli as Gu Jae Hee: Her acting was good. She's really good at doing the big-eyed cry face and did a good job portraying her character. I had the most problem with the fact that there's just literally no way in real life that she would be mistaken for a boy over the age of 12.
Minho (SHINee) as Kang Tae Joon: I saw him in Hwarang first (where he did a fabulous job, IMO) and while I don't think he was "terrible" in To The Beautiful You, his acting wasn't the best back then. It wasn't anywhere near distractingly bad, just here and there something nondescript would feel like it was missing if you looked too hard. I think his looks and facial expressions matched the character perfectly.
Lee Hyun Woo as Cha Eun Gyul: Okay now this kid can ACT. Wow! He blew me away. You could really just feel everything he was feeling.
Side Characters: Kim Ji Won did a great job playing the immature and obnoxious gymnast Seol Han Na. Seo Jun Young as senior student Seung Ri in JaeHee's dorm was a character you see more and more as the series goes on. He did great playing the slightly-annoying but still somehow likeable character. Kang Ha Nuel played TaeJoon's rival Min Hyun Jae, a character where you could tell there's more than meets the eye. Kang Ha Nuel played Hyun Jae's frustration and inner conflict perfectly. The half-French half-Korean actor Julian Kang did well as Jae Hee's brother. He wasn't the best actor but I'd say far from "bad." I don't speak fluent Korean myself, but his lines in English were delivered believably, and I confess I was quite entertained watching and hearing someone who LOOKS so "western" speak Korean with such ease.
Minho (SHINee) as Kang Tae Joon: I saw him in Hwarang first (where he did a fabulous job, IMO) and while I don't think he was "terrible" in To The Beautiful You, his acting wasn't the best back then. It wasn't anywhere near distractingly bad, just here and there something nondescript would feel like it was missing if you looked too hard. I think his looks and facial expressions matched the character perfectly.
Lee Hyun Woo as Cha Eun Gyul: Okay now this kid can ACT. Wow! He blew me away. You could really just feel everything he was feeling.
Side Characters: Kim Ji Won did a great job playing the immature and obnoxious gymnast Seol Han Na. Seo Jun Young as senior student Seung Ri in JaeHee's dorm was a character you see more and more as the series goes on. He did great playing the slightly-annoying but still somehow likeable character. Kang Ha Nuel played TaeJoon's rival Min Hyun Jae, a character where you could tell there's more than meets the eye. Kang Ha Nuel played Hyun Jae's frustration and inner conflict perfectly. The half-French half-Korean actor Julian Kang did well as Jae Hee's brother. He wasn't the best actor but I'd say far from "bad." I don't speak fluent Korean myself, but his lines in English were delivered believably, and I confess I was quite entertained watching and hearing someone who LOOKS so "western" speak Korean with such ease.
Writing and directing: *SPOILER ALERT* skip to Happy Ending Factor section to avoid spoilers.
Honestly I don't have a lot of complaints but I did feel like the character Eun Gyul really got the short end of the stick in this drama. He was smiley and cheerful and a good friend and fell in love and then all he gets out of the drama is rejected and abandoned. I felt really bad for the way the script drug this character along on and on and on, confusing him about his feelings and his loyalties and his sexuality and then just left him without a real happy ending. Like the whole script he was just being USED as the protagonist for whatever needed to happen that the other characters couldn't fulfill. I didn't like it. He was such a nice guy, he didn't deserve to be strung along so heartlessly and then left without a happy ending. He didn't even have the dignity of being told face to face that JaeHee was a girl.
The whole idea of a highschool-sophmore-aged(?) girl traveling to another country alone and unescorted to pretend to be a boy to befriend and help an athlete she admired from the TV was farfetched. It probably could have been explained more thoroughly in order to make it feel more plausible, but then the series would have drug on boringly while they did that, and people would lost interest before the real story could even begin. Catch-22. I suppose it's best that they just went with the sparsely-explained version rather than bore us to death, but even so I had a hard time getting pulled into the storyline for a while at first because of the unrealism of it.
The character Song Jong Min felt really unnecessary. It felt like he was just there to look like an @$$. All he really ever did was yell rudely about the obvious, scoff and roll his eyes, and apply more lip product than a dozen 11 year old girls.
The kisses/hugs/skinship progression was weird. Like the characters would overreact to their faces being too close together but then the same characters would be relatively chill about kissing, then back to having a panic attack at the other person being too close/touching.
The whole idea of a highschool-sophmore-aged(?) girl traveling to another country alone and unescorted to pretend to be a boy to befriend and help an athlete she admired from the TV was farfetched. It probably could have been explained more thoroughly in order to make it feel more plausible, but then the series would have drug on boringly while they did that, and people would lost interest before the real story could even begin. Catch-22. I suppose it's best that they just went with the sparsely-explained version rather than bore us to death, but even so I had a hard time getting pulled into the storyline for a while at first because of the unrealism of it.
The character Song Jong Min felt really unnecessary. It felt like he was just there to look like an @$$. All he really ever did was yell rudely about the obvious, scoff and roll his eyes, and apply more lip product than a dozen 11 year old girls.
The kisses/hugs/skinship progression was weird. Like the characters would overreact to their faces being too close together but then the same characters would be relatively chill about kissing, then back to having a panic attack at the other person being too close/touching.
Happy Ending Factor?
Probably 4 out of 5 on the happy ending scale. All the main characters seemed to be left with a clear or insinuated happy ending except the one I mentioned in the section above with the spoilers - which was my most irritant pet peeve about this series.
Final Summary:
Overall this was a cute series, and a fast watch. I'd say I'm glad I watched it once. I may even watch it again some day.
Check out {To The Beautiful You} on Viki!
Check out {To The Beautiful You} on Kocowa!
Check out {To The Beautiful You OST} on Spotify!
(Above links based on US availability. Dramas may not be available on certain sites for certain countries. It depends who acquired the license for a specific drama for your country and who did not. Drama may be available on Netflix in your country but not even show up in mine, so check there if you have a Netflix acct. Ditto for Viki- may be available in your country but not mine. Click HERE for a list of legal Kdrama streaming sites and what countries they work in.)
Check out {To The Beautiful You} on Kocowa!
Check out {To The Beautiful You OST} on Spotify!
(Above links based on US availability. Dramas may not be available on certain sites for certain countries. It depends who acquired the license for a specific drama for your country and who did not. Drama may be available on Netflix in your country but not even show up in mine, so check there if you have a Netflix acct. Ditto for Viki- may be available in your country but not mine. Click HERE for a list of legal Kdrama streaming sites and what countries they work in.)
