Coffee Prince (2007)

An Unexpectedly, Beautifully Raw Portrayal of Attraction

Let's get one thig out of the way - this drama has haunted me since the day I finished it. And I mean that in the best way.

For days after finishing Coffee Prince I could scarcely close my eyes without picturing Gong Yoo's pained face as he lies next to Yoon Eun Hye on the beach. This drama took me by surprise with the sheer amount of pained yearning present in the main romance - and the unexpected 'love is love' message. Almost unheard of in any show, in any language, from 2007, but from South Korea? God, I still can't get it out of my mind.

Gong Yoo is the star of this drama. There's no denying it. His struggle with his emotions for Go Eun Chan is real and raw and sometimes painful to watch. It's perhaps one of my favourite performances in a drama, ever. This storyline can get heavy at times, but it stays rooted in that tenderness of true, terrifyingly deep love. The angst of the show comes from these themes of falling in love despite yourself, of forgiving the ones you love, of hiding the truth and forgiving yourself for it.

While the chemistry between GY and YEH is electric, the entire cast seems to mesh well together. Every scene with the coffee shop crew feels fun and comfortable, like you're watching a real group of friends hanging out. The secondary performances are memorable, and the style of the show at large is simply heart-warming and comforting.

But, god, Gong Yoo. Watch it just for him and his painful painful yearning, I beg you. You won't regret it.

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I lost count how may time I re-watched this drama even many years past but it still fresh like I watch it for the first time! Just love the story, the acting of every cast especially YEH, she portray this role really well and naturally. I dislike three love story but I understand the plot and it smooth, sad and fun along with their relationship. I love the part that Han Kyul overcomes his hesitation and accept that he loves a guy. But I don't like character of female second lead that Han Kyul head over heal to her. She's just pretty and cheat on his brother, if it was real life he should hate her instead lol.
The drama made a special place in my heart, I like when many character has a problem which is solved within the story, family, friend, the Prince team and secret love. I loved them all.
P. S. The eye killer waffle boy Kim Jaw Wook, he already hot here so it's a bonus to re-watch it again & again lol.

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Coffee Prince. Oh, coffee prince.

Smooth. Honest. Sexy. Humble. Coffee Prince reallyyyy stole my heart. With the great music, actors, & romance lines that always held a sense of realism no matter how crossed the wires got -- it was just an absolute joy to watch. But surprisingly enough, even with all that, that wasn't what hooked me. It's truly the basic plot of the story, one that is so unique & original, that it keeps pulling me back. Eun-Chan is a girl, pretending to be a guy, who falls in love with a guy, who thinks she's a guy. And it was so well done! Eun-Chan and Han-Gyul were hot..er..I mean, really good together, & there were so many relationship beats that had me squeeing because of how spot on they felt to real life. They reacted to their circumstances the way I could imagine reacting, so as the audience I was totally with them through all the ups & downs. Oh, and hey, who could forget about the other boys of the show! They really made the coffee shop feel like a family & definitely rounded out the tone, & my overall love for show. The episode I knew this show was the one? When they went to the apple farm. I don't know why but for some reason I remember just totally relaxing into that episode. It was fun, yet soothingly quiet. I found myself feeling very peaceful, allowing myself to let the show take me wherever it wanted to take me. It was so nonchalant in a beautiful way and just took me away to Eun-Chan and Han-Gyul's world. Absolutely wonderful show.

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It was okay

I'm really not into older dramas. They really grate on me. I started watching Full House and had to stop. Decided to watch this one because it's so highly rated. I like Gong Yoo. I loved him in Goblin, but haven't watched him in anything else. Tried to watch Big and didn't feel it either. I even tried watching Princess Hours and had no luck.

This drama kept me mostly all the way through. However, was this even a romance? Yes, there were some cute moments here and there but the 'romance' felt more like a friendship and I am not sure how these two fell in love in the first place. Like what? I'm still waiting for it. I am not sure why the FL was mad most of the time and she annoyed me to no end. She was such a self, confused character. I would have preferred if she was actually a boy or a lesbian...would have made for a better story...like someone who is actually struggling.

Not much else to say except for the fact that it was long.

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Good drama

Overall, a good drama.

Personally, I would have liked to see SFL struggle more to get back SML (actaully, to be honest I would have very much preferred him to look at other options and conclude the obvious, namelythat he could do better than someone that would treat him as she did, deceiving him for more than a year, disappearing for two years without a word, and then have the gall to ask him to get back together after she broke up with the guy she cheated with... and he could do better with anyone else, or even by himself) or at least a stronger love triangle where SFL actually faced a challenge. I mean, there was more struggle and uncertainty with the This Week My Wife Is Having An Affair love triangle, and it was basically an afterthought. I wished that SML had channeled Astrid from the ending of the Crazy Rich Asian movie and demonstrated he had a little spine, self dignity and self respect.

The fact is, SFL doesn't really have to face the consequences of her actions, because such consequences are a token resistence that crumbles basically in their first meeting, then he takes her back. And that happens in the first episodes, after which she is no longer the one that chases after him and tries to get back together, he is the one that chases after her, from going to her apartment after their first intimate encounter to literally begging her not to run off with DK, the man she had cheated with, once again. This is insane. Even in something completely ludicrous, where FL should have definitely not taken him back, like World of the Married, the cheating partner has to go through more hoops in order to get a new chance, while here, absurdly, its the SML that runs after her anyway and tries to convince her to stay, after basically folding immediately when she asked him to take her back, despite the pain and betrayal she had put through -what he had to put up with was orders of magnitude worse, she just walzes back in his life after more than one year of cheating and two years off with her lover... I mean, they don't even discuss why she is back: did she have a change of heart, and if then why? Did the relationship just not pan out and so he is the backup? Did DK cheat on her with the briefly mentioned model? One really is forced to try to convince themselves of the first option based on what little evidence the show provides, and the "why is she back" bit is barely touched on-.

I mean, compare this with the hoops the SFL in Backstreet Rookie has to go through, after merely kissing another guy and briefly leaving: there we at least see the reason she is back, we see that she finally learned to appreciate ML (and she never really loved the other guy, anyway) and before she didn't realize how committed the latter was to her, and she goes back (and never really gets a chance). Here we don't know why she is back (did things not pan out and he is the fallback? Or did she suddenly realize she really loved him? But she said she loved DK when she run off with him, and seemed to know all along how much HS loved her and how she was his entire world, so it's not as if she knows anything more about him than when she intentionally deceived him for more than a year while seeing DK behind his back, and run off with DK for two years without saying another word to HS... I really would have liked to be given a reason beyond her saying that she wants to get back together).

This is exemplified by the flippant way his concerns around DK are dismissed/made fun of. He tries to play it cool, but is disturbed that she is still talking with the guy (and meeting up one on one, with a creepily intimate vibe and her giving clever replies and not really putting the foot down and drawing boundaries, when he is still trying to win her back). I would have been okay with saying that his advances were inappropriate and she was going to walk away if he didn't stop hitting on her (she banters with him and makes clever comebacks, frankly it was more like flirting, and I would say that she was at least indulging his flirting if not partecipating -by the end, definitely participating and stringing him along to make HS jealous, which given DK was the guy she cheated with for a year was simply insanely disrespectful, though I liked the jealousy on *her* part, high time she understood she couldn't take him for granted, though unfortunately in practice she could safely take him for granted and he was back to begging and grovelling in two seconds flat-), though I would have very much preferred if she had shown some consideration for HS's obvious insecurities and understood that this was a bad idea in the first place.

Here we are not talking about indulging or pandering to some irrational jealousy. The key point here is that no, her being with HS is not enough to reassure him that he is the one she had chosen, because prior to that, while they were together, she cheated on HS with DK for more than a year, so clearly her being with HS was insufficient to assume she wouldn't cross any boundaries in the past: it would have been a completely different situation had she decided to break things off with HS and then purse a relationship with DK, in that case it would have hurt, but he could have at least trusted that if she had developed feelings for someone else she would talk to him about it and not double time him. He simply cannot make that assumption, because she has shown herself to be the kind of person that would keep her foot in two shoes and lie to his face for more than a year (for that matter, I was about to say "chose him over DK", but it's not clear whether this was because she relized she loved him and not DK, or because DK cheated on her with the underwear model, or she broke up because of something else DK did, so it's not clear that the "choice" is not a convenient fallback... I chose to go with the first option because the alternatives would be even more unpalatable and even more taking him for granted).

Given that betrayal and the fact that DK is still trying to get back with her, this is not simply mantaining a friendly relationship with an ex-bf, it's not a separate matter. And if HS feels that he has to keep his mouth shut about his feelings to be able to stay with her, and when he tries to express them he is not taken seriously, there is a problem. If YJ has no idea that HS would be bothered by her taking calls from the man she had been seeing behind his back for more than a year and agree to one-on-one meetings and lunch, then she would be completely insensitive. I was about to say that nobody could have expected him to be relaxed about that that quickly, but that was before knowing of the betrayal and about YJ using DK to make HS jealous... after knowing that, I would switch that quickly to ever, and say that the phrase is validated, because nobody did expect that, and in particular she did not: she knows perfectly well how HS truly feels about DK. When he comments on him wanting her back because she is a talented artist, she says it's a surprise to hear him say something nice about the guy (considering he had been seeing his gf behind his back for more than a year and she run off with him for two, what a surprise). And later on she exploits the pain he felt with regards to DK to remind him that she had lived with the guy in their NY house and he still has feelings for her, and she might be starting to reciprocate, to make him jealous, before outright telling him that she is going back to him.

To be honest, if we were to speak about practical advice I would give someone in HS's situation, it would be to run for the hills and choose anyone else (or nobody and stay single). A perfect life of two rich artistic guys with nice houses, the dream life/couple? And YJ and HS being even more unhappy than FL? Well, in reality I would say that HS was the only miserable one, and he had perfectly good reasons to be: that completely ignores the fact that there is more to life than money and YJ betrayed HS, while nobody stabbed FL in the back in such a manner. Her knowing him so well as to share something like the little foot fetish and choosing to lie to his face for more than a year, knowing full well about how much he loved her and trusted her, and self servingly exploiting and breaking that trust, and then running off for two without a word, and later exploiting knowing which buttons to push to hurt him with his insecurities regardind DK... it all makes her actions all the more damning (in Backstreet Rookie at least SFL was confused about ML's commitment to her and didn't realize how much he had sacrificed for her, here she knew all about his feelings and took him for granted, deceiving him anyway and then later intentionally using DK to hurt him).

I would have liked to see a real triangle, for HS to have had other actual relationships and given it a real try. It just seems mightily unfair that he would wait for her for years and not have the chance to truly explore and discover whether someone else could make him happy... with him being strong armed and pressured into a decision and not having any experience with a relatioship with any other girl, I really cannot say he is making an informed decision (and in fact imho anyone else would have been a better choice, given that they had not betrayed him in such a horrific manner, in fact staying alone would have been preferable). More than that, that way YJ would have had to actually do some work to win HS back, while this way she essentially just shows up and asks. One cannot even talk about her evolving: she still thinks that it's okay for someone to stab people in the back to get what they want (she tells ML that had he really been interested her being his cousin's gf wouldn't have mattered and he would have tried to steal her away for real... as if people simply acted on their impulses with no consideration for the fact that they are hurting people that they don't know and never did anything to them, or people they know and care about, and getting what they wanted by any means necessary is the only thing that matters... would have liked to see how she would have felt like had she been on the receiving end of such a life philosophy and had someone really been trying to take HS away from her, rather than it being HS's one sided crush... this is simply basic golden rule stuff, treat others like you want to be treated, and people being able to separate their emotions from whether pursuing someone is a good idea and wouldn't want to come between two people in an established relationship, and I would have liked ML to push back on her hogwash and restate that no, as he told his gf, the fact that he is HS's cousin mattered, he is not a sociopath that is completely self serving and does not mind stabbing people -in this case family he cares about- in the back in the pursue of his goals... though his flirting was still inappropriate -it was not clear to me that HS truly didn't mind when he put his head in YJ's lap, but it's something ML should have wondered about, though maybe it's something he did, and in fact he did seem aware of the fact that he and his flirting were not being taken seriously- and I appreciated FL calling him out on it), she just decided for some reason that now she does not want DK anymore and wants HS again.

It's not clear to me that he can expect this not to happen in the future, and to be completely honest I guess that nobody can guarantee not to fall out of love with someone and in love with someone else, and in such a case it would be perfectly fine to be upfront and honest about it and break things off, the worry is whether she would be like last time and deceive him for more than a year: to be clear, had she simply dumped him and run off for two years, while unpleasant for HS, I wouldn't have had a problem with it, because she would have been honest and really the only alternative if she was in love with DK and not with HS would have been what she chose, namely lying to HS' face for more than a year. If she still thinks that what she wants is all that matters and she can stab the people she loves in the back to get it (as she implied when talking to ML about his crush on her), then with that mentality it's not clear that she wouldn't lie to HS again if a similar situation to the one with DK arose in the future, maybe being in DK's shoes this time around and hurting someone else as well, like she suggested ML to hurt his cousin by pursuing his girlfriend for real. The notion that one might think that despite one's feelings and emotions and what they want/wish for, there are other considerations, and they don't want to be the type of person that would come between two people in an established relationship, or be willing, in order to get what they want, to unfairly treat someone they didn't know and that never did anything to them, or stab a family member and someone he cares about in the back, as if wanting something or someone is a free pass, a get out of jail free card, and merely desiring something or someone wsa a universal justification in and of itself. Again, the double standard of thinking that this is all perfectly okay if she does it to someone else, but it's not if even much less is done to her. That's the reason I would have liked her to have some real competition, rather than simply someone that had no interest in coming between her and her boyfriend and was completely unthreatening.

It's absurd that she doesn't have to do anything to win the person she deceived for more than a year back other than show up and ask, and he is the one that needs to beg her to stay, again. Once again, it's not her fighting to get him back, it's him fighting to get her to stay -and, after putting up with more than a year of betrayals, he needs to beg her not to run off to the lover she cheated on him with *again*, when she was the one that asked him to take her back? After more than a year of lies and running off for two years without a word, she gets to come back into his life just by asking once and barely saying sorry, and he has to grovel and beg her not to leave him again for the man she had cheated with?-. I simply find it absurd that she basically didn't need to face any challenge to get him back, she just had to show up and ask twice.

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Tomboy chaos at its finest

'Coffee Prince'- a legend in its own right. It truly works, in my opinion, by putting a spin on the flower-boy concept, making it fresh. I think it's a mixture of believable acting, funny characters and slight angst that makes this drama so good in my eyes. It's by no means perfect, but by today’s standards, and if you are a fan of tomboy characters and 2000s kdrama romcoms, it's a classic and I highly recommend it.

I loved Eun Chan’s boyish charm, their morals, their loyalty and that they had personality and weren’t just the love interest. I also liked how they actually passed as a guy. Han Gyul came from a place of heartbreak and self-importance but bettered himself by the end. He learnt to except himself and loved Eun Chan no matter who they were. I appreciated how hard working he became and how much he generally loved the café.

I immensely enjoyed the chemistry and family bonds between the characters, I really got the sense that these were real people. The actors did a great job!! I think this was helped by the down to earth script, and the use of many grounded sets and shots that added to the atmosphere, it really sold the drama's tone and humour, which made the watch that bit more immersive. Some of the characters were outright messy, they could be interesting, good people but selfish at times, driven by their need for company, love or money, but it worked because that's real life, no-one’s perfect. Everyone has their battles when it comes to needing connection and resources - this drama did a great job at highlighting that. Not everyone has the luxury of being like the Choi family; Cheabols with money to throw at their problems. In real life, sometimes you’re pulled into difficult situations.

This is a 2000s drama however, meaning it does come with some of the annoying tropes of the era, like dramatic miscommunication, love triangles and the ~classic~ rich guy doesn’t know how to be nice, but the nostalgia and realistic acting diluted it’s substantial-ness for me. It switches from comedy to raw and impactful believably. I really like its message of love who you are, your job and who you want to become - which I would argue are very important ideals to have in your life and makes for a great take away/shower thought.

The songs were stuck in my head for weeks. This has certain re-watch value for me, I always smile when I see its icon on Netflix. I sincerely enjoyed the journey this show took me on and I can't wait to watch it again soon ^^

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Worth watching

I must say that I appreciated the drama.

One thing that kind of disturbed me is the confusion between being "untamed" and unreliable. I don't think that controlling one's partner is a goal in a relationship, but couples do, and should, negotiate boundaries and rules and be mindful of what one's partner is comfortable with -not saying that each have to agree to anything, but each one's concerns should be discussed and taken seriously-. This is true even if open or polyamorous couples. People have boundaries that they have every right to ask be respected, and if they treat someone with loyalty, respect and honesty, they have every right to expect to be treated in the same manner in return. This does not mean that people cannot fall out of love and in love with someone else, but it does mean that there is a difference between deceiving your partner versus being honest with them and breaking things off cleanly and respectfully, without going behind their backs for more than a year like she did. Again, if she had merely dumped him because she didn't love him anymore and loved someone else, then it would have been a completely different situation and, however painful, I wouldn't have had a problem with that, given that the alternative would have been to deceive her partner, which she did.

When pursuing a long term relationship, I don't think that it is a good think to glorify being unreliable, or to confuse it with being strong and independent, as if they are the same thing, or even as if you cannot have one without the other. It's not being "wild" and "uncontrollable" and something impossible to decouple from being a free spirited and independent person: we are mixing two things that don't necessarily have anything to do with each other. One can be fiercely independent and still be reliable, show up for the people they love and be there when it matters, and be honest and upfront if they change their mind.

I mean, I struggle to come to terms with where the exact boundary is, and in the end I can only draw the line at treating one's partner with honesty:
1. As much as one might wish to, one cannot guarantee that they won't fall out of love and/or in love with someone else. I think that if the situation is such that it is a true change of heart, and not a superficial whim, if this is discussed honestly with one's partner then really they have no reason to complain about the person's conduct given those premises: they might complain about fate and the circumstances, and wish things were different, but given that they are not and that the only alternative was to be deceived, being treated with honesty and respect rather than being lied to and cheated on is the best one can do and expect.
2. That said, people can also draw the appropriate conclusions from the situation and are not obliged to take such a person back if they change their mind. In fact, while I think that such a case would be quite different from the shamelessness of going up to someone you had deceived for more than one year and ask them to take you back, I also think that one would have every right to ask themselves if the person might have another change of heart down the line, because after all they already did, and while they might appreciate the fact that they didn't break their trust and talked about the situation honestly, one also doesn't really want to repeatedly end up in a situation where a person changes ones' mind, so the question of why they did and why it's not likely to happen next time around is still relevant.
3. In terms of people's wishes, when talking about stable relationships and building a family, clearly people would like to be with someone stable and reliable that they can count on to be there in time of need and to show up when it counts. This does not guarantee that one's feelings couldn't change with time and they might fall out of love, and in that case we come back with the importance of honesty and being up front about the situation and what to do -do you want to wait and try to rekindle the flame? Do you up?-. Being with someone so flaky and unreliable that they could change their mind at a moments' notice and want to break up, then come back unannounced after years they didn't speak a word to you and want to get back together really is not a nice prospect, albeit a quite different and much better one than the real situation faced by HS, namely being with someone that deceived him for more than a year (and we are not sure even owned up to it and admitted it at any point in time, even when asking him to take her back, when he really deserved the ability to make an informed decision and that piece of information would have been very important).
4. From what I understood, HS knew about YJ seeing DK behind his back for more than a year while she was lying to him about working, so it's not that he knew because she told him, he was aware of it beforehand. Does this mean that at no point in time she actually confessed to having carried on a more than year long affair with DK? Because that would be utterly damning in my eyes, if she came back after running off with DK for two years, had the gall to ask HS to take her back, and deprived him of the ability to make an informed decision by hiding such an important piece of information. If I was thinking of taking someone back, it would matter *a lot* if they had been respectful and honest in the relationship prior to the breakup. I might still have some concerns about the possibility of repeating the experience if they change their mind in the future, but I could at least assume that they would be open in their communication and let me know if their feelings change. If they had deceived me for more than one year, it would be a whole other matter. As I said above, this is the equivalent of depriving him of a very important, I would say even critical, piece of information very much relevant to his decision of whether to take her back or not. To hide this information from him while asking him to make this decision would be in essence to deprive him of the ability to make an informed decision about a key aspect of his life, asking him to make a choice based on faulty premises and in essence treating him like an object and self servingly manipulate him to get the outcome you want while in essence continuing to deceive him -a lie by omission, and I suppose a good old fashioned lie if he ever asks and you deny the truth like back in the day when she was telling him she was working while seeing DK behind his back-. Not saying that this is what she did, but frankly, it's another of the things that I wished the show was not vague about: she does kind of brush off his words at the side of the road, they never talk about it again if not in that insultingly jocking manner that completely disrespected the severity of the topic and the pain expressed in that outburst on their way to the airport, in the end it's not clear to me whether she knew he knew. I guess that there are various options: he did discover it himself, having been aware of it during that more than half a year of deception, but it's not clear whether he told her he knew, or she discovered he knew, at some point in time prior to her asking him to take her back, or whether she told him about it at some point in time prior to asking him to take her back, or whether she just plain didn't knew he knew and intentionally hid it from him while asking him to take her back. Hiding it from him while asking him to decide whether to take her back would have been unacceptably self serving (and if she didn't say because she already knew he knew, I guess that we are left with the question of whether she would have... given how self serving and self entitled she had been this whole time, and the way she lied about leaving to allow him to follow his heart, while in reality she was threatening him with the prospect of getting back with DK again, and later on almost running off with him, because she couldn't take him being the one to leave her -so, to protect her pride she chose to leave and hurt him again, choosing to hurt him again like she did in the past and only changing her mind at the last second, and in any case after using DK to make HS jealous and threaten him into begging her to stay-). I guess that we know for sure that FL doesn't know about this because HS just told her his gf dumped him, and one would hope that his cousin didn't either, because otherwise it's hard to imagine why he would want to associate with someone that treated someone he claimed to love in such a manner -his reactions to her coming back were akin to what one would expect from her changing her mind about being with HS, rather than someone that had intentionally deceived him for more than a year-. Again, this is someone that the shows asks us to expect wouldn't tolerate his gf being kissed by someone else without reciprocating even before they were together, an absurd notion given that he was a playboy himself, not to mention hitting on his cousin's girlfriend, and a notion that felt to me like overthinking and underestimating him (or maybe it's HS's trauma speaking, when he says that even if he pretends he is okay he is not I got the feeling that this is what he felt with DK when he brought up the betrayal and hating DK in the end and they made it into a joke -even after recently using him to hurt HS, make him jealous and force him to beg her to stay-... but we know that he tried to play it cool while being disturbed by DK in the past).

In all this, I obviously ignore the unrequited mini-crush with the one sided kiss, one because he did that to someone that showed him no loyalty, respect and honesty and therefore had no leg to stand on to ask the same in return, while she did it to someone she knew had always loved only her and never even took a coffee with another girl (therefore, they would not be even even if he did to her exactly what she did to him with more than one year of deception, etc.; there is simply no way for him to get even, no comeuppance, the fact being that he was the kind of person that would put up with more than a year of betrayal and wait around for years for her to come back, while she was unwilling to even give him the space to sort out his feelings, and resorted to threatening him with getting back with the man she had cheated on him with... and he doesn't even come close to even in any case: their relationship is profoundly unequal, as are their expectations for each other, the latter being severely, almost comically, unbalanced in YJ's favor, and it's telling that she is not willing to endure a billionth of a fraction of what he went through for the sake of the relationship), two because it's simply laughable to talk about this in the same breath as her lying to his face for more than a year -and potentially hiding this fact even after asking him to take her back-. Again, I would have very much preferred a full blown affair with someone that wanted him back, so that she would have to actually struggle to get him back -instead of him trying to get her not to leave him for DK again-: as awful I felt about World of the Married for having them back together, if I recall correctly, at least ML had to sweat for it more than YJ did here, where she merely needed to show up twice and then she was back with HS, and he was the one chasing after her and begging her to stay, again. Not that I think that either in World of the Married or here they should have gotten back with the people that had originally betrayed them, much better situation in A Good Lawyer's Wife or The Magicians where the betrayed spouse/girlfriend has a revenge affair and does not go back with the cheater -again, turnabout is fair play, and they cannot exactly complain of being paid back with their own coin: what goes around comes around, and if someone treated you with no respect, loyalty and honesty (as is the case with the year long deception, and was the case with the husband/boyfriend cheating in those other shows), they are not entitled to get any themselves-. In any case, nothing even comparable to this karmic/poetic justice happened in Coffee Prince, as anyone with a sense of perspective, or a neuron in their skull, would have to acknowledge.

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Powerful Story for early 2000s

Coffee Prince seems a bit crazy at first - how could a man fall for someone he thinks is a guy? But the story is necessary because it teaches you to love people as they are.

The character of Chan Hoi Kyul comes to befriend Go Eun Chan, thinking she's a boy. Their friendship grows and eventually Chan Hoil Kyul, despite conflicting emotions, falls for her. One would think the truth could be revealed earlier, but the charade allows Chan Hoil Kyul to really consider her (his) worth as a person. He finally gives in, thinking even if it's a guy, these emotions are real. Considering social expectations, it's a risky move.

So many questions come up for the viewer - Why didn't he figure it out? Could that kind of desire come through despite a false premise? How might Go Eun Chan feel, considering her "love" has fallen for her (as a man)? But it all comes together and the truth is revealed - and it makes sense. You wonder HOW and the characters answer that quite well.

Such a powerful show for early 2000s that says a great deal about our focus on beauty and less on character. What if we all cared for others no matter their representation (focusing on their beauty within)?

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I'm rewatching this more than 10 years after I watched it for the first time as a kid, I don't know why I've been doing this recently but it is by far my MOST ENJOYABLE REWATCH of a drama I've seen as a kid!

I remembered the very basics of the story, where there is a girl pretending to be a guy and running a coffee shop and all.. But revisiting this now, may I just say, a MASTERPIECE!

There isn't much I can add to the many positive reviews for this drama here, but I absolutely love how this drama aged like wine. It tackles a topic that's rather taboo in Korea then (and fortunately even now) and handles it quite realistically. Things tackled in the drama are still of time, really the only disaster I can point out here would be the costumes (early 2000s fashion is just.. horrible). Anyway, compared to other girl pretends to be a guy dramas I've seen, My Chan is probably the best I've seen so far in terms of how her character was made and how she grew throughout the drama. I love also how this is a romcom, but just has the right amount of cheese for sweet moments (compared to other romcoms that I kinda get turned off from for being overly cheesy). Yoon Eun Hye and Gong Yoo's chemistry here is just absolutely beautiful and seeing proper development even from side characters is another aspect of this drama that I really appreciate. This was super fun and I enjoyed so much that I binged all 17 episodes in one go,,, RIP to my body clock really.

Side note: Kim Jae Wook is absolutely beautiful here.

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Nice drama

A good story with excellent music.

On YJ, I must say that I enjoyed her jealousy, but it's telling that neither when she first came back asking to get back together with HS, nor later, she ever tried to fight for him or give him any reason to chose her. Basically, she just showed up, and he took her back. She didn't have to work to convince him to take her back, she didn't have to make any positive case (not that there is any reason he shouldn't prefer basically anyone else, or even no one and just remain single). She gets him back by just showing up and barely apologising (but he had already taken her in the house by that point), and then by threatening to leave him to get back with the very person she had cheated on him with, and for some reason this outrageously manipulative behaviour pushes him to grovel and beg her rather than pushing him away.

Again, it was good that she was jealous because at least it meant she cared. But she never fought for him, or made any sacrifice (not sure this is the right word, because we would be talking about giving up something of lesser value for something she values more, and I would say that technically speaking that wouldn't be a sacrifice) or gave up anything of any importance or even risked anything, while he was willing to wait for her despite nothing indicating that she would ever come back, and I would say that he gave up any semblance of self respect by groveling in response to her toxic attempt to strong arm him into begging her to stay.

In other words, speaking technically, I would say that she did no "costly signaling" whatsoever. She showed up and asked to get back together and barely apologized. She never fought for him. He was the one that came back to her after their first intimate encounter. He was the one that asked to have a vacation to reconnect, and then groveled and begged her to stay when she threatened to leave. She just shoved up, did absolutely nothing to fight to get him back, or give him a reason to, and succeeded by just showing up and then threatening to leave him for the man she had cheated him with, forcing him to beg her to stay and even giving him a scare when she decided at the last minute that after all, given he had groveled and begged for her to stay, she would.

What I wish she had done was yes, being jealous, but then follow it up with the natural next thought, namely an acknowledgment that what she had done to him, by lying to his face for more than a year when he knew, was billions of time worse than anything she had had to ever endure -frankly, I was amazed to see her brush aside him mentioning her more than one year long betrayal when she brought it up and *still* only caring about herself and what she felt, without any acknowledgment of his pain-.

I would have liked her to acknowledge that fact, how hurt, humiliated, disappointed, betrayed, tortured he must have felt putting up with it for a year, and begging her to stay even after all that. I would have liked her to acknowledge that she had done that to him while he trusted in her completely and had eyes only for her, while what she experienced came on the back of her atrocious more than year long betrayal and two year of absence without a single word, and, frankly, a new relationship where she did exactly nothing to rebuild trust (if that was even possible, which imho it was not, not that HS or the show even required her to), but instead continued to flirt and even talk on the phone and meet up one on one and have lunch with the very man that she had been seeing for more than a year behind HS's back, and that still has feelings for her. This prompted him to talk about his insecurities with FL and even in part, semi-subconsciously, played a part in him inviting her to the exhibition in the first place. I would have liked for YJ to make HS feel safe to share his insecurities about DK, which she knew about anyway given that she exploited them to make him jealous and then to threaten him into beg her to stay, least she went back to DK, rather than mocking him for them -even after his outburst at her more than year long betrayal, which left her unfazed and didn't prompt any reflection on how he must have felt, and that she mocked him for later on, with him having to play along, while she exploited those very same insecurities to make him jealous and then threaten him to beg her to stay unless he wanted her to go back to the man she cheated on him with-.

I mean, it's obvious that HS is deeply scarred by the betrayal, one can see it in the way he asks FL to hide the kiss from his cousin, even if he says he doesn't mind. Now, I think that this is selling his cousin short (and they were not even together at the time, not to mention FL didn't reciprocate it). But it's also very worrisome from the perspective of his mental health that he seems to be at a point where delusion and putting his head in the sand seem preferable to knowing the truth about the kind of person you are choosing to live your life with. The kind of person that would humiliate and deceive him, lying to his face for more than a year, without a shred of loyalty, respect or honesty, is a very different kind of person from someone that would find the idea utterly repulsive. The kind of person that would treat him with respect and honesty and have a clean breakup with was the kind of person that he was in love with and that turned out to live only in his mind, while the real person turned out to be someone very much cabale of looking someone they have been with for nine years in the face and tell him they were going to work while meeting DK behind their back, and do this again day after day for more than a year. This matters, if you are in a relationship with someone and you don't know this critical piece of information you are not really in a relationship with them, but with a figment of your imagination, someone very different from the real person, and we should want to have a relatioship with a real person, not with a delusional fantasy we constructed. In the case of ML and FL, this doesn't really apply, given that she was kissed but didn't reciprocate, so it says nothing about her, and it happened before she was in a relationship with ML, who was in any case a playboy that was trying to semi-seriously/half-jockingly get in YJ's pants anyway, and so would have had no reason to complain.

Bottom line, in any case, good that she was jealous. Bad that she didn't acknowledge how she had done a billion times worse and HS would have been made to feel a billion times worse, and her deception went on for more than a year before she finally left him and run off with her lover for two years, not even when he pointed it out to them (she brushed it aside on the side of the street on their way to the airport, and mocked him for it later on... obviously we know about his insecurities and it's not really a joke, like her telling him not to get too close to FL was not really a joke in the previous episodes). Bad that she never does anything to fight for him or give him any reason to choose her (if someone shoved up after more than a year of lies and two years with no words while she run off with her lover, and told me they had broken up and she wanted to get back with me, and later on followed that up with trying to make me jealous of someone she had cheated on me with for more than a year, talking about the house they lived together in in NY, and ultimately outright telling me that said person they cheated on me with still had feeling for them, they were starting to reciprocate and wanted to run back to them unless I groveled and begged them to stay, and almost doing it anyway when I did, only to disappear... well, that would be a hard pass for me, thanks but no thanks, next).

I am ambivalent about using DK to make HS jealous.

On one hand I think that it was worse when she got together with HS and continue to talk to DK on the phone and meet up one on one and have lunch together, while he was still smitten with her and trying to get her to come back to him, indulging his flirting and bantering with him, letting him caress her head in a manner that seemed pretty intimate, walking shoeless on the grass while he was talking about wanting to make an impression on her, all in all building up to an overall atmosphere and vibe that was decidedly ambiguous, rather than putting a hard stop and setting down boundaries, while fully knowing that HS was bothered by DK, and for very good reasons, given that she had been seeing this man dfor over a year while she was still with HS, lying to his face about going to work, so this is not a matter of a sassy and open person very comfortable with her ex that has a solid relationship with very good trust with HS, based on a foundation of honesty and respect, but rather of someone that saw this very person, DK, behind HS's back for more than a year and lied to his face about him, then run off with DK for two years, and had just gotten back to HS, for which, as she well knows despite him trying to play it cool, DK is still a sore spot -otherwise she wouldn't be trying to use him to make him jealous or threaten to leave him for DK-.

I consider these talks and meetings worse because they signaled a fundamental lack of care: she knew that HS was bothered by them, and had very reasonable insecurities born as a result of her own action (which included lying to him for more than a year while seeing DK behind his back); she knew that DK was smitten with her; she should have been fighting to rebuild trust (not that I think it would have been possible, and not that the show required her to, given that HS took her back immediately), instead she basically ignored -when not outright mocked and made light of- HS's insecurities, only to later exploit them to manipulate and threaten him.

This to me is maybe worse than the outright manipulation, because it signals that she takes HS for granted, knows of his insecurities, and instead of taking them seriously, even if she disagrees, she mocks them or simply ignores them, basically not caring about his discomfort, which she weaponized later to make him jealous. So, this signals "you are going to be with me anyway, so I don't have to care about your insecurities, forcing you to pretend to be okay while knowing you are not, and making fun of them if you bring them up, only to exploit them to make you jealous and threaten to leave you with the man I cheated on you with for a year if you don't beg me to stay", basically making it abundantly clear that yes, she knew very well what she was doing and the effect on HS.

In some respect, one could say that using DK to make HS jealous was crueler because it was done explicitly for that purpose, but I would argue that knowing of his insecurities and simply not caring, after she was the one that asked to get back with him despite her more than year long betrayal and two years she run off with her lover without a word, was simply worse, because it signals a taking him for granted, and a lack of care.

In fact, I would say that while I would have much preferred if she actually fought for HS instead of tormenting him with DK and threatening him to leave him for the man she had cheated with, again, at least she is trying to make him jealous because she is jealous herself, so she is no longer taking him for granted, plus she is exploiting DK's feelings for her own ends, and after witnessing the infuriating spectacle of seeing DK treat HS as someone that he couldn't even remember how many times he had met, and having the gall to talk about a project, while being someone that had been seeing his girlfriend behind his back for more than a year... you cannot get more disrespectful than that, the hypocrisy was infuriating. Given the fact that he had been seeing YJ behind HS's back for more than a year, I feel very little simpathy for his complaint about being used by her -serves him right, not sure where he gets the idea that it's atrocious for him to be used in such a manner when he is willing to walk all over others, such as HS, to get what he wants, if he cannot see the sliver of poetic justice there I sure can smell karma-.

It was still cruelly sadistic and utterly insane, and something that would have repulsed me and made me run away, more than anything else, and for her to threaten to run back to DH if HS didn't grovel and beg her to stay, and almost doing it, only to then disappear, was even worse -and in as much as she was really intentioned to get back to DK, which she ultimately didn't, if HS wouldn't comply with her demands, you loose all the upside of trying to make him jealous in an attempt to make HS stay with her: here she is leaving becaus she prefers to hurt him than to risk having her pride bruised if he ever chosese to leave her, that's not really something that could in a roundabout way be seen as a manipulative and messed up way to persuade HS to choose her so that they could stay together, quite the opposite, it's threatening to leave him for DK if he doesn't bend the knee-.

What was definitely missing was her fighting for HS. She didn't fight to get back with him, nor did she really struggle or do anything to mend the damage she caused and rebuild broken trust. She took HS utterly for granted, and ignored his concerns and insecurities -which she knew and later exploited, so there is no pretence that she was unaware of them-, mocking them when he brought them up and forcing him to pretend he was cool with everything, while asking him to be hyper aware of hers, the standard being that he would have to never be even remotely attracted to anyone else, while he had put up with more than a year of deception and her running away with DK, which she acknowledges she loved at the time, while he stood there waiting for her.

It feels incredible, but she didn't have to do anything besides showing up (she barely uttered half an apology after he was more or less hooked), he put up a tiny amount of token resistence, and then he was the one chasing her, never the reverse, starting from after their first intimate encounter up until he was groveling and begging her to stay. He was the only one doing the chasing, groveling and begging, she never even fought for HS and did nothing to keep him. It was utterly one sided, and even after breaking up with DK, they had more of a love triangle there than HS ever did with FL -because DK actually had feelings for YJ and the threat of getting back to him was a realistic one-. So she pushes him to compete with DK for her affection by manipulating him into groveling and begging, and even that is only barely enough -and she disappears anyway for a time-. But she never goes through even a iota of the effort for HS's sake, in fact all she has to do to get him to take her back is show up and ask, and then threaten to leave him again for the man she cheated with, unless HS grovels and begs her to stay.

Really, I would have been contented to see her make any effort at all to fight for HS, to acknowledge his insecurities and take them seriously, to acknowledge the pain and humiliation and betrayal she put him through, which were much worse than anything she went through, and to rebuild trust (impossible in reality, was not even required in this fic via kdrama magic). Any self awareness whatsoever, please. And action, her doing something to address the insecurities and broken trust, a costly signal or any signal at all, really, something to indicate that she is willing to fight for HS (maybe him having a real affair with someone that reciprocated would have helped to prompt more of an effort, not that it should have been needed if he was not so ready to take her back anyway and she actually had to work for it and put some effort into it besides merely existing).

It's false that she was self reflective and acknowledged her faults. She lied about why she was leaving, later admitting she did it because couldn't stand he might be the one to leave her. She brushed over the more than one year of betrayal. Sure, she admitted once with ML that she was self centered and unfair, in the past and now, but didn't even acknowledge that what she had put HS through had been billion of times worst (nor did she mention her manipulation, or the usage of DK to make HS jealous, to HS). And in any case, merely saying it and doing absolutely nothing about it counts for nothing. Okay, it's less hypocritical than the alternative (and he had her moments of lies and hypocrisy, as indicated by the aforementioned justification for leaving, or even her starting to reciprocate DK's feeling, and certainly the double standard where she makes a big deal only of her feelings, while not acknowledging in the next line the much worse emotional trauma she had caused HS, and the disparity between what she gave him and what she was asking of him, is maybe being honest about being a hypocrite and having two weights and two measures), and spares us the time to argue about her being completely self serving, self entitled and self absorbed, and that she is, again, hurting HS and not giving an inch while he is trying his best, and endured much more she ever did, waited for her for years and took her back despite everything she had put him through, since she is acknowledging it... but then, if this is not followed by any action and she does not change her behaviour, what does it count for? Nothing, absolutely nothing. Empty words, as empty as her half uttered apology when HS took her back, not followed up by any action. She took more than she ever gave in return, and never fought for HS, never worked for, endured, struggled to get back with him, just showed up and asked, and then reduced him to a groveling, begging mess by threatening to leave him for the man she had cheated with.

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I don't have the nostalgia that a lot of people have with this show. I eventually watched it because it was recommended by so many people and was deemed such a classic, and when I did I found that I really enjoyed it. Other classic dramas like Full House or Autumn in my Heart really rub me the wrong way -- those tropes from the early and mid-2000s are so grating. The shouting, the absolutely awful main lead, the usually dumb female lead, the repetitive and over the top plot points... I don't find it charming, I just find it to be bad writing, directing and acting.

But! Coffee Prince has charm, a thoughtful story and good acting from a dynamic ensemble cast. Sure it's got plenty of the tropes of the era (and some of those do bring down the rating for me), but it also its central premise (girl pretends to be boy, falls in love with arrogant boss) to tell a thoughtful story full of romance and self-discovery that actually rings true.

Coffee Prince is built around the premise of a poor, hard-working, not very romantic girl (Go Eun Chan) who is often mistaken for a boy because of the way she looks and dresses. She is in fact mistaken for a boy by the male lead (Choi Han Gyul), who is rich and arrogant and who hires her to pretend to be his gay lover so that he can stop going on the blind dates his grandmother sets up for him. She is supremely responsible for her mom and younger sister and is just scraping by, he is irresponsible and lazy and yet rich as hell. It's a classic setup that is initially played for laughs. But as the drama progresses and Eun Chan's lies get deeper the actual implications of the situation become clear.

This is where I think Coffee Prince really deserves its classic status. Both of the main characters start to fall for each other, but feel that they can't express their love -- Eun Chan is afraid to tell Han Gyul she is a girl because he might hate her for lying to him, and Han Gyul is having a crisis as he falls in love with Eun Chan, who he thinks is a man. The longing, heartbreak, repression and unsaid feelings of that are really delved into as the show goes on. I think its that exploration of the inner turmoil of the characters that really gives this drama its lasting impact.

On a more superficial note, Gong Yoo is incredibly handsome and charismatic as Han Gyul and Yoon Eun Hye is very funny and relatable as Eun Chan. The rest of the cast at the coffee shop are very fun and have great chemistry. I think the success of the show is partly also due to the hilarity and sweetness of that ensemble.

The reason this doesn't have a higher score is because I don't think the storylines with Choi Han Sung and Han Yoo Joy (Han Gyul's best friend and former love) are very interesting and I think the semi love triangle that develops between Sun Chan, Han Gyul and Han Sung has very little tension. It's one of those love triangles that just feels like a waste of time. I also think that Eun Chan's mother and sister are very one-note and annoying and that most of the scenes at her house are dull and repetitive. It's very typical of that period of dramas to have the family of the female lead be somewhat stupid, useless and annoying, because it makes her seem like even more of a toiling saint for taking care of them.

All in all, although the show has its weak points its so entertaining and emotionally moving that I think it firmly deserves its classic status. I highly recommend it to anyone who feels like all the dramas pre-2010 are full of nothing but shouting, hysterical sobbing and sudden amnesia.

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