Un Amor Tan Hermoso (2020)

A nice story for in-between and short days

First of all, I have not seen the original story, but I am sure the C-Drama is better. It also has a different genre, has more deepening and is more emotional.

The Korean adaption, on the other side, is a short drama with 24 episodes, each around 20 minutes long. It is colorful, cute and lighthearted. One of these dramas where you just can sit back and not be emotionally involved or stressed.
I personally need something like that after an intense drama.

The story:

Shin Sol Yi (So Ju Yeon) is madly in love with her clever and good-looking neighbor and classmate Cha Heon (Kim Yo Han). However, he ignores her caring for him and is rather cold towards her. She still does not give up and clings onto him. When a new student Woo Dae Sung (Yeo Hoe Hyun) joins the class, he immediately shows interest in the sunshine Shin Sol Yi. This is when Cha Hoen realizes he does indeed care for her and the whole drama begins.

In general, the story takes place over a lager timespan. It starts during their school years and shows different stages of these in ca. 17 episodes. Afterwards, the drama moves on quite quickly, showing some episodes at university and how they deal with job until they are something around 30. The pacing was fine, but towards the end everything was a bit rushed.

The characters:
As you can get a small inside from the description above, you notice that Shin Sol Yi and also Woo Dae Sung appear as true sunshines towards the fevers. Even tho Cha Hoen was portrayed as cold-hearted at first, this description soon won't do him justice anymore.

What I really loved were the supporting actors and the friends group. Shin Sol Yi really has some of the best friends you can get in the entire world, and the bond of her classmates was strong as well.

It is been some time since I watched the drama, but there are scenes which I remember still till that day.
Simply, there is not much to say. I enjoyed the drama and will definitely watch it again if I feel down, and so should you :).

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STREAM OR SKIP?

I have watched both the versions of A Love so Beautiful, the difference between the korean and the chinese version is that the korean version has 24 episodes each being 20 minutes long, where as the chinese versions has 24 episodes with each being 40 mins long and yes this did affect the plot-line a lot as the developed and growth of characters presented in the chinese version were not at all seen in the korean one.

Korean format focused more on the school years of the characters.
The Chinese original version was, on the other hand, more melodramatic and mature, with a larger focus on family problems and the characters’ adult life which helps one grow on the characters and know about them more deeply.
The Korean version is not a step by step adaption of the original, it just takes some plotlines and creates their own story which resulted in the lack of dept and the plot being left shallow. The drama has a very fast pace, and, at times, it’s too fast and makes things feel rushed.
Unfortunately, this remake failed to deliver the sweet cute chemistry and heart that the original C version did.
I liked the C version and was excited for the remake.
I think they really miscast this, there was zero chemistry between the leads and the female lead's acting just looked really cringe and didn't even suit her.
The male lead was just stoic and i didn't feel any connection or likeness towards him to be very honest, the C version had a stoic male lead too but we actually got to see his character growth and how he let down his walla and changed for the sake of his girl.
Now coming to the other characters, the second male lead visually i would say yes, but he left me disappointed as the C version one was really charming, i felt bad for him throughout the drama as i could see how much the girl meant for him. The K version had a nice male lead, yes he did a lot for our female lead as well..its just he didn't leave any mark for me.
The drama is an epitome of bad casting and direction.

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Cute, if it's your first drama

After having "Squid Game" and "Extraordinary Attorney Woo" as my firsts experiences with kdramas I was expecting another well produced, interesting and captivating drama with great acting but it's not really what I found.

If you're looking for something simple, cliche and to finish quickly this is for you.

I like the story, who doesn't love the typical kdrama love story right? But I here's a few things that disappointed me:

Characters - The secondary characters and couples are way more interesting than the lead ones. Which would be fine if Shin Sol-i and Cha Heon were at least likeable. But they're not.

Acting - I don't who's idea was to add a huge amount of aegyo into the acting in this drama but it's really bad and embarrassing.

Rushed story - There's not enough development for the characters, their struggles and goals. Most of the show focus on the lead couple relationship and everything else is forgotten.

I do however recommend "A Love So Beautiful" if you need a drama to watch with kids. They are probably going to love it.

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A teenage love story

I did not watch the Chinese series, so I will not (and obviously cannot) make any comparisons. I had no expectations on this drama, so I guess I just loved it as it is. Everything you needed in a high school romance drama was there: hanging out with buddies, falling in love, teenage crushes, good and bad teachers, school assignments, meeting (or not meeting) parents at home and extracurricular activities (sports, theater, singing).

The main leads were nice and cute, and so were the other 3 supporting leads. The male lead was kind of a shy, aloof and awkward guy who didn't know how to express himself and the female lead was cute girl who badly needed attention in a nice way. The friendship dynamics among the five of them was cute. I particularly liked the scene when they went out of town, and lied to their parents about staying overnight at each friend's house, and all sat down watching the evening scenery.

The acting was good. The female lead, Soo Ju Yeon, who is 27 years old, really did well acting as a high school girl. Kim Yo Han was also great, knowing that this was his first drama/film. In the last episode, where they showed behind-the-scenes, you can see how totally different Cha Heon's personality was compared to Yo Han in real life. Yo Han really looked like he enjoyed the dancing scene (at his best friend's wedding) so much, which was not the kind of thing you would expect from the quiet Dr. Cha Heon.

Anyway, I enjoyed this drama. Something nice and sweet, bringing back memories of your youthful days (as also mentioned in the last episode), Would I watch this drama again? Yes, definitely.

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I will never get these hours back.

As the title and review score implies, I was not a fan of this drama. I walked into it knowing it would not live up to the C Drama and that was okay, I had just finished up watching True Beauty and wanted to just watch this quickly.

If I could go back in time and tell myself to do literally anything else I would have. The characters in this drama are about as one-dimensional as they come, and almost all of the plot lines resolve themselves within the episode. I understand that that's basically like the formula that the show is going for being more serialized than your typical drama but it makes it unfortunate when plot lines that are kind of interesting (like the substance plot line) get resolved basically off-screen. My biggest grievance with the show is honestly the romances. The second-main lead trope is here and its incredibly cliched. I don't fault the show for that since the cliche is a cliche for a reason and some shows can still do it well. This show doesn't even try to add nuance to the characters and therefore they all just come off as pretty bland. The main male lead literally makes no sense, the show gives you the premise that the main female lead has liked him for as long as she can remember and he just doesn't acknowledge her advances. However its clear from episode 1 that not only does he acknowledge them but he also likes her back because the moment the second main lead comes into the picture he is visually jealous. He is also a member of their friend group so it makes no sense why he would be so standoffish to her besides just to further the plot. This however is not the romance that I have an issue with.

It's the cliche side characters getting together. For starters the idea that one of the characters has a crush on the nurse and then everyone just acknowledges it and no one addresses how its odd is kind of weird but okay whatever. The trope where the one friend is falling for the other character but the other character basically rejects him at every chance is here and at first its harmless and even though you can tell where it's going you don't mind. That is until they just jump the gun and go from "oh my she likes the nurse and not me?" to "you can tell people I'm your girlfriend" with literally no character development to warrant this change. The whole plot line of him going to the hospital makes no sense because they don't imply that anything actually happened to him physically other than him being sad about her falling for the nurse but that doesn't warrant him being in a hospital especially for as long as he is. Overall the moment she said that I had a physical gag reflex as it just felt so forced that it made me feel uncomfortable. It didn't help that the very same episode is when the two main leads get together. Therefore we were left with 6 episodes of no real plot which of course just means its gonna fast forward through random moments in their lives with arbitrary plot lines being thrown in for suspense (like him leaving to the US and coming back or what not).

Honestly I was gonna give this show like a 6.5/10 since it suffers the same faults as the other show in the same "series" whose name is blanking on me but it was a chinese drama with a physics guy. But their chemistry was actually nice and made the show worth watching, this felt like watching cardboard fall for each other and the two side characters rushed (I use rushed lightly as its more like they were just rammed into the romance) made it almost impossible to finish the show let alone recommend it.

tldr: don't watch it if you value your time. Unless you really like Kim Yo Han or something which in that case, stream WEI songs or something its a better use of your time.

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Really good fun!

Short: Short but well paced romantic drama that traces a group of people from their mid teens until their early thirties, focusing on the two leads and their long romance. Most of it is primarily from her perspective, but the final episode is all from his and explains a lot. Brilliant performances particularly from So Ju Yeon who is a young actress who manages to pull off such a wide age range really well. This is just pure fun really!

Detail:
To be honest, I wasn't going to watch this one for a while because it's another school romance and... I've watched a couple of school dramas lately and was looking for something a different, but with So Ju Yeon in it I decided I'd give it a shot and see how it went.

Opening scenes and her character is just solid sugar, she's squeaks when she talks and is just a non-stop walking cute-monster - which isn't meant to be a compliment, I wasn't sure how I was going to cope with this character but decided to stick with it.

Took about by the end of that episode for her silliness and genuineness of her character to come through and I started warming to the show and the other characters as well.

This story tracks them from 2006 to current day as they are in school, going through something like four years of school and graduating, going to university and entering their careers. We see a relatively high speed (though it doesn't feel rushed) snapshot through their lives and it ought to be inspiring to younger viewers to see this development in such a short space of time - if you're ever in school wondering if it will ever end, or if what your life will be like afterwards, while it's not exactly documentary-level, it's an entertaining glimpse into the transition that young adults make as they grow, including when things don't go according to plan.

The majority of the story is essentially from Sol I's perspective (the female lead), as she opens the whole drama by declaring her feelings for Heon (the male lead) - who immediately rejects her flat - and then spends the majority of what follows utterly relentlessly chasing him down despite what seem to be his best efforts to gently ignore her.

There's a love triangle in it, and this is the second drama in a while where i've honestly felt that the second lead is an incredible human being in general. Part of me was hoping against the writers wishes that the better man, the second lead, would get the girl, because he really was just a better person in my eyes. Alas, first leads always get the girl, I don't consider that a spoiler, it shouldn't come as any surprise. :)

I had some real problems with Heon's character and his actions. He teetered on the fine line between being assertive and red-flag-aggressive. Maybe i'm just too sensitive to such things, but it was part of what made me start rooting for the second lead.

Up until the final episode of this drama I was going to give it maybe a 7.5 ? Mostly because of my concerns with Heon and the unbalanced nature of the whole thing. Then the final episode comes on, and it's HIS side of the story. I won't go any further, but, balance restored.

I come out of this drama warm and fuzzy, it was entertaining and I was always looking forward to the next episode and i'm a bit sad having spent 14 years with this characters that I now have to say goodbye, but, that's what I have to do. To me, that's the sign of a good story and is why I give it a higher grade than most people seem to have. Swimming against the tide? That's me :)

Characters are all great and the secondary arcs are enjoyable. It's great seeing all their friends later in life and how various stories have played out in the background. There's one moment where there's a bit of a reunion and you genuinely feel almost like you're part of that experience, seeing this characters again and reminiscing about old times.

So - don't be put off by school drama (it isn't all in school anyway), and stick with it to the end - that final episode made a big difference for me and was beautifully written.

Watch it again? Heck yes, this one's full of the warm fuzzies, particularly after you know the full story and can then enjoy it more fully on subsequent rewatches.

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The plot was generally the same, but it was also as AMAZING!

If you've seen the Chinese version of this drama, you probably can't help but compare the two versions. Needless to say, I still think that both versions have their own charm and with the different cultures, I think they have added their own kind of uniqueness for each of the version. I still think it is great how Koreans always manage to add their culture into the adaptation of dramas from other countries, like the theme song which was originally sung by Kim Jong Kook and was a hit way back in the early 2000s. This was a very light series and even though it was predictable who would end up with who, there are details that were tweaked, like how the male lead showed interest even in the first few episodes (In the Chinese version, it was only midway through the drama that they showed the male lead was interested in the female lead). I also like that they chose Kim Yo Han as the main lead because even though he is a rookie actor and maybe not as experienced as other actors on set, his effort really shows and he was able to portray the character well. I can't wait to see him grow in his future dramas!

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Watch It If You're 10

I get it, she has a huge crush on Heon and would do anything for him no matter how rude or standoffish he is but this gets so ANNOYING.
Sol-I, through the entire show, is exactly the kind of woman I would never want to be. That's my opinion, I'm not saying anyone else does or should think the same way as me but come on, she's jumping around like a kid every time he appears, doing anything she can to get his attention and will jump through any possible hoops to even get a smile from the guy- then in the end, he says he always loved her more???????? Did he????????
I really liked the FL before I watched this drama, I always liked to see her in any roles but this show has kind of ruined her whole vibe for me. She's close to 30 (at the time of filming) but the portrayal of a teenager is so overdramatic that I had to forward through most of the show.
I really thought that at some point she would realise he's not worth it and the second lead is but no, this girl never gave up on the main guy and that was the icing on the cake. Hated it.

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