[REVIEW] MBC TV series "Heartstrings" - 1st Episode

Scene from MBC TV series "Heartstrings" [MBC]

MBC TV series "Heartstrings" - Wednesday/Thursday 9:55 p.m.

When Lee Shin (played by Jung Yong-hwa), the vocalist of his school's band and an idol to female students, didn't show up for a concert, Kyu-won (Park Shin-hye), troubled since she is the host of the event, takes to the stage instead of him and producer Suk-hyun (Song Chang-eui) whose talent has been recognized in Broadway, finds such a Kyu-won interesting. This scene, the climax to the first episode of "Heartstrings," seemed like a collection of the typical and contrived setups the drama presented to the audience during its hour-long run. Just like its subtitle "You who I somehow ran into," what drives the two's ill-fated relationship is Lee Shin's impoliteness and Kyu-won's nosiness, and Suk-hyun and Yoon-soo's (So E-hyun) past as lovers gets explained in detail by people around them. Lee Shin's rudeness is only confirmed by how he says, "I detest ugly people" which is as absurdly disturbing as how Baek Seung-jo (Kim Hyun-joong) said, "I detest stupid girls" in MBC TV series "Naughty Kiss" and also in how Lee Shin throws an envelope containing money to Kyu-won to pay for the concert he failed to show up at.

This is basically due to the drama not depicting on what modern day youths are like and rather following on the image the older generation has of them. The sight of Lee Shin riding a bike through the wind or the wide shot of green campus may look pretty but it is hard to look past the awkwardness under guise of the innocence to other characters such as in how one quite nonchalantly eats food one female student left over or Joon-hee (Kang Min-hyuk) calls out "Natasha!" to Hee-joo (Woo Ri) whom he has fallen in love with at first sight. That is why it seems like this drama will have no small amount of problems to solve including convincing viewers of why Lee Shin acts with such unreservedness -- suggesting to Kyu-won, "Whoever loses in the competition will be the other person's slave for a month!" and unconditionally devotes himself to Yoon-soo. Using a few trendy words will not be enough to express the sensitivity felt by Koreans in their twenties in the year 2011.

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Reporter : Choi Ji-Eun five@
Editor : Jessica Kim jesskim@