[Drama 2008] Worlds Within 그들이 사는 세상

[Guest kdramafanusa]

Source/Credit: Written by Mr. X at Twitchfilm.net on January 6, 2006

2006[KOREAN TV DRAMA REVIEWS] 꽃보다 아름다워 (More Beautiful Than Flowers)

<<I only included the sections about writer Noh Hee-Kyung. To read the complete article, please click on the provided link.>>>

WRITER

노희경 (Noh Hee-Kyung)

[best Theater 세리와 수지 (Sallie and Suzie) - MBC 1996

세상에서 가장 아름다운 이별 (The Most Beautiful Breakup in the World) - MBC 1996

내가 사는 이유 (The Reason I Live) - MBC 1997

아직은 사랑할 시간 (It’s Still Time To Love) - KBS 1997

거짓말 (Lie) - KBS 1998

우리가 정말 사랑했을까? (Did We Really Love?) - MBC 1999

슬픈유혹 (Sad Temptation) - KBS 1999

바보같은 사랑 (Foolish Love) - KBS 2000

빗물처럼 (Like Rain) - SBS 2000

화려한 시절 (Wonderful Days) - SBS 2001

고독 (Solitude) - KBS 2002

...

.....Family Dramas were perfect for TV consumption, since their structure allowed to cast the entire acting spectrum, from child actors to new stars and seasoned veterans. And, until the advent of the Korean Wave, it was always the most popular genre amongst Korean viewers.

Three writers in particular shaped this ‘Family Drama craze’ in the last twenty years: Kim Jung-Soo, Kim Soo-Hyun and Noh Hee-Kyung. The oldest and most respected of them all is certainly Kim Soo-Hyun, who started her career in the late 60s, writing some parts of the 미워도 다시 한번 (Love Me Once Again) series, which eventually became the most popular melodrama saga of the decade. She debuted as a TV Drama writer pretty late, considering she was already 44 when she wrote her first masterpiece, the 1986 MBC Drama 사랑과 야망 (Love & Ambition). Throughout the 90s, she developed a knack for creating glorious characters out of human tragedy, wrapped around the familiar (but never predictable) tropes of the genre.

사랑이 뭐길래 (What Is Love) in 1992, 목욕탕집 남자들 (Bath House Men) in 1996 and 청춘의 덫 (Trap of Youth) in 1999 were all major hits, confirming the writer as perhaps the most important in the country, with every new project gathering the attention of the whole media. Her last two shows 완전한 사랑 (Perfect Love) and 부모님 전상서 (My Precious Family) brought to the forefront the immense talent of veteran actress Kim Hee-Ae, who despite rarely ever acting in films has become one of the most respected actresses in the country. All of Kim’s Dramas show a certain sense of pride, that strength which makes her characters move with confidence even in the most desperate of situations.

Kim Jung-Soo is a little different. Her Dramas never had the gloomy and depressing mood of her other two colleagues, but she’s been rather uneven in her career. When she gets it right, her Dramas explode with energy, like the aforementioned ‘Lifetime in the Country’, and especially 그대 그리고 나 (You and I), my favorite Family Drama of all time. Drawing a portrait of Koreans from all walks of life during the IMF crisis, the show had the kind of poignancy and intelligence you rarely find even in films, with even the ‘poor vs rich’ dichotomy Korean TV Dramas love so much crumbling under the weight of the worst economic crisis the country had seen since the postwar.

Starring Choi Jin-Shil, Cha In-Pyo and Park Sang-Won, the 68 Episode Drama managed to show how Korean people survived through the painful period and used the theme of family love to highlight its characters and their development. And, even though they never reached the brilliant level of her past shows, her last three Family Dramas have been good, especially the 2001 MBC Drama 그 여자네 집 (Her House), with the Kim Nam-Joo/Cha In-Pyo couple going through a crisis after their sweet honeymoon period ended. Whereas Kim Soo-Hyun seems to favor the characters’ strength and willpower, Kim Jung-Soo’s Dramas are more about breaking the barriers between rich and poor, and exploring the dynamics of those ‘mixed marriages’, without all the obnoxious tendency to generalize which afflicts other writers.

But the most eclectic and original of them all is certainly Noh Hee-Kyung. Like most modern TV Drama writers, she started writing one-two episodes Dramas for the various ‘Best Theater’ series (which started as adaptations of popular best sellers, but have later turned into merely one-two episode shows) in the mid 90s. But it was with her 1996 4 Episode special 세상에서 가장 아름다운 이별 (The Most Beautiful Breakup in the World) that she first tasted the acclaim of her peers and critics alike. A year later, she started one of the many writer-producer collaborations — the most famous being Song Ji-Na and Kim Jong-Hak {Eyes Of Dawn, Sandglass} — with PD Pyo Min-Soo. The two worked on four Dramas: 거짓말 (Lie) in 1998, 슬픈 유혹 (Sad Temptation) in 1999, 바보같은 사랑 (Foolish Love) in 2000 and finally 고독 (Solitude) in 2002.

Still, despite writing some of the best TV Dramas of the last ten years, real success always escaped her. ‘Lie’ started the ‘Mania’ Drama trend in the late 90s, but it always struggled in the ratings. And, even though many people were nearly obsessed with the show—including Choi Min-Shik’s character in 해피엔드 (Happy End)!—1999’s 우리가 정말 사랑했을까 (Did We Really Love?) had a hard time emerging from the ‘Mania Drama’ label (which usually means it’s a good show, but in most cases it’s not popular with the general audience). Even if it was excellent, 바보같은 사랑 (Foolish Love) had to compete with a little Historical Drama called 허준 (Hur Joon), just about the best thing on Korean TV in the last 5 years. The result? While the fantastic MBC Drama about the rise of Joseon’s most famous doctor was flying around the 60% ratings, ‘Foolish Love’ touched the bottom of the barrel, with some episodes around the 1%.

Her only real hit was the 2001 KBS Drama 화려한 시절 (Wonderful Days), but she continued to write excellent Dramas mostly avoided by the big audiences, like Lee Mi-Sook’s return to TV Dramas in 2002’s ‘Solitude’, where she plays a married woman facing a mid-life crisis and falling in love with a man 15 years her junior (played by Ryu Seung-Beom). But what’s so off putting about Noh’s Dramas, what’s the reason the average viewer tends to avoid her shows? The fact she never walks the easy road, she doesn’t try to add layers of saccharine ‘cuteness’, nor loses herself in the safe cover of syrupy melodrama. The most important reason, though, is that she never lets that familism invade the realism she embeds her characters with. Because if you show reality, then it’s only inevitable that sense of family love will emerge, sooner or later.

The warmth of their personality comes from being true to life, not artificially good hearted, like so many inferior TV Dramas try to do. The beauty of her characters is the roughness, that often unpleasant feeling between family members which doesn’t emerge out of petty issues, but simply because it’s part of being a family. Ever spent a week without fighting at least once with your parents, or your sister/brother, to then act like nothing happened the day after? Ever resented some family members for a long time, knowing how easy it would have been to let bygones be bygones and reconcile, but also how hard making that first step was? That’s the world of Noh Hee-Kyung. Coldness hiding warmth, rage and resentment hiding love, bleak realism hiding the real nature of the family union. Describing why her characters act that way, Noh commented: “My father was mean and pretentious, my mother hypocritical and double-faced ... and I inherited some of those personality traits myself. I just want to accept characters the way they are.” Noh’s latest Drama 꽃보다 아름다워 (More Beautiful Than a Flower) was the same.

The ‘flower’ of the title is the mother of the family, played by veteran Go Doo-Shim. Naive like a kid and too nice for her own good, she keeps swallowing her pride whenever she has to confront her son and daughters. She can’t remember things like she used to, and often ends up in trouble because of that. Her husband (Ju Hyeon) abandoned her for a younger, prettier woman (Bang Eun-Hee) who ends up falling ill, and they rarely communicate, if not to reopen old wounds; her oldest daughter (Bae Jong-Ok) resents just about the whole family, for forcing her to drop out of college and support her younger sister’s (Han Go-Eun) studies. She was left alone with a daughter by her first husband, and now spends her days as a fish vendor.

Her sister deceptively seems to look down on the whole family and their sacrifices, living the life of a career woman, dining at expensive restaurants and driving imported cars. Their only brother (Kim Heung-Soo) is a good for nothing bum, who keeps fighting, going to bars and enjoying the presence of women. And that’s only the tip of the iceberg of many apparent cliches populating this show. Then, how did Noh manage to make something interesting out of all that, and why is this show such a glorious and triumphant way of showing what families are all about? Because of a simple, often overlooked, thing… truth, sincerity. That feeling completely absent from the pretty star vehicles this show was competing with at the time, 천국의 계단 (Stairway To Heaven) at the very top.

If you watch TV Dramas to sympathize with characters, don’t watch this show; if you think of TV Dramas as an escape from reality, something to enjoy in your free time, without thinking too much about what you’re looking at, avoid this show like the plague; if you want your dose of pretty stars acting cute in front of the camera for no apparent reason other than making a fool of themselves, don’t touch this Drama with a ten foot pole. But, here’s the trick, if you’re willing to get past the initial cliched setup, you’ll find a mountain of elements to enjoy. For instance, not a single character is sympathetic in this show: from Go Doo-Shim’s ridiculous naivete, to Bae Jong-Ok’s stubbornness; from the utopist view Han Go-Eun has of life, to the womanizing of Kim Myung-Min. And then there’s someone even worse, Ju Hyeon’s character, who commits one despicable act after another. But I fell in love with all these characters, because they’re so realistic it almost hurts watching them. From embarrassing situations ringing true, to finding beauty in great little tragedies, this show throws just about everything at those characters, but they somehow make it out, they survive. And, pardon the cliche, it’s all because they’re family.

This is truly one of the best ensemble casts of recent memory, and I didn’t necessarily think so at the beginning of the show. Han Go-Eun had always showed very little in terms of acting skills, just like Kim Heung-Soo. But the acting here is so good, it changed their career. And when I say changed, I don’t mean a simple transformation in terms of characters they played, but a maturation itself. Kim Heung-Soo improved by leaps and bounds with this role, and Kim Myung-Min was cast in the superb 불멸의 이순신 (The Immortal Lee Soon-Shin) thanks to his top notch performance here. But besides the younger actors, the older cast is incredible: Ju Hyeon, a longtime veteran who never disappoints went the extra mile here, making a despicable character sympathetic by the end of the show; Go Doo-Shim, who’s the highest paid actress on TV for a reason, shows once again her limitless talent, and I don’t think I need to talk about people like Park Sang-Myun and Bae Jong-Ok, already well established in the film world.

I won’t lie, this is not a show for everybody. It’s very gloomy, depressing, and rarely ‘entertaining’ the way shows like 내 이름은 김삼순 (My Lovely Sam-Soon) are. But if you’re willing to look a little inside yourself, to possibly experience situations you can relate to, painful as they might be, watch this. It has the kind of intensity and humanism that’s hard to find today, with so much time wasted on vapid pretty stars and playing the same old tricks all the time. The acting is amazing, the characters feel like people you’ve always known, and despite the longer length, it rarely ever drags. And, if you ever thought Korean TV Dramas were too superficial, too concerned with hyper-unrealistic situations, this show will change everything for you. Because even when people might seem as hateful as possible, there might be a flower ready to blossom inside them. That’s the magic of Noh Hee-Kyung.

[Guest kdramafanusa]

WRITER 노희경 (Noh Hee-Kyung)

Source/Credit: Written by Mr. X at Twitchfilm.net on May 8, 2006

[K-DRAMA REVIEWS] 굿바이 솔로 (Goodbye Solo)

<<I only included the sections about writer Noh Hee-Kyung. To read the complete article, please click on the provided link.>>>

.....In Korean films, while a very significant portion of the entire population lives in the Metropolis (or similar settings in smaller cities anyway), urban melodramas or films dealing with those themes are surprisingly under-represented compared to other countries, other cities, other film industries. Although the genre is clearly there both on film and TV, with gems such as 네 멋대로 해라 (Ruler of Your Own World), 후아유 (Who R. U.) and the like, the theme of urban alienation doesn’t seem to concern Korean pop culture as much as other things do. That is why Dramas targeted at an older audience focus on adultery and class divide issues, while teenager-friendly Trendy Dramas are more concerned with love in its various shades (puppy love, platonic love, crazy love, love needs a miracle, a love to kill, a genre to kill too… if possible), pretty faces and over the top histrionics. Then if there’s a milieu that’s certainly the world of Mania Dramas, a sort of weird subgenre usually generated from a lack of mainstream appeal and an almost violently obsessive following online.

Now calling Mania Dramas a genre is sort of like throwing all Animation films into a genre. Since Mania Dramas include Fusion Sageuk like 다모 (Damo), ‘melodramas of pain’ like 미안하다, 사랑한다 (I’m Sorry, I Love You)—which, unlike the others, was also popular on TV—cult sitcoms like 안녕, 프란체스카 (Hello, Francesca) and its creators’ new, interesting work 소울메이트 (Soulmate), the label only defines its status vis-a-vis the audience. But more than anything else, that label fits perfectly with urban melodramas, with the uncontested queen of the genre being In Jung-Ok of Ruler of Your Own World and 아일랜드 (Ireland). When I heard one of the other big names in the Mania Drama game, supremely talented writer Noh Hee-Kyung of 꽃보다 아름다워 (More Beautiful Than Flowers), 고독 (Solitude) and more, would write her own urban melodrama I was quite intrigued.

Even though she always more or less dealt with relationships between alienated characters, lately she’s been working around the tropes of 가족주의 (family-ism), the traditional canons of 홈드라마 (Home Drama, Family Dramas) often in very gloomy, depressing but still very powerful ways. But in the last six months or so a sort of mini-movement is forming both on TV and the big screen, that of reconsidering what the essence of that family-ism really is. Through shows like 불량가족 (Bad Family) and films like Kim Tae-Yong’s 가족의 탄생 (Family Ties), the new keyword is stripping all the patriarchal veils which coloured the term for decades, and really trying to find what family means to people.

.....

Trendy Dramas rarely even border this subject, as they’re too concerned with 삼각관계 (menage a trois), secrets of birth and walking cardboard cutouts strolling their product placement on the screen. So this new movement of Dramas trying to find an alternative to that patriarchal family-ism are certainly a welcome novelty, and so far have produced good results. I should have expected it, given the slightly off-balance views towards the traditional family writer Noh has shown over the years, but the most striking example of this new ‘genre’ might very well be her latest show, 굿바이 솔로 (Goodbye Solo). Like Bad Family, it doesn’t necessarily deal with a blood-related family, but a 마음의 가족, a ‘family’ but out of emotional connection and mutual understanding, often regardless of blood ties.

Noh made a few very important changes with this show: she moved the focus from the usual 4 characters to 7, almost all with equal importance; unlike many of her past works, she didn’t paint the characters’ struggles through poverty, although their current condition has a lot to do with the poverty they experienced in the past. In a way, that sense of poverty which gave a different spin to characters like Go Doo-Shim in More Beautiful Than Flowers is something Noh uses to build her new familyism. Stripping the show’s world view from the usual patriarchal, Confucian, capitalist view of the family with all the following ‘roles’ emerging, we’re mostly dealing with characters that more or less are free of financial problems, at least at the moment. But poverty, being in the past, is what guides their modus operandi, in a way. It’s what forces them to lie, to do things they wouldn’t do otherwise, to hide behind a wall they build by themselves.

Even with casting, Noh changed the cards a little. Although people like Bae Jong-Ok and Na Moon-Hee have been Noh regulars for quite a while, the choice of Kim Min-Hee surprised many people, not only because she’s never been in a mature Drama like this, but because of her past work people would rather remember her as Lee Jung-Jae’s girlfriend than as an actress. At the end of the day, perhaps because Noh had a troubled childhood before getting to where she is now, and she never really liked 잘난 척하는 (stuck up) people, she’s always shown a predilection for those who work hard, who try to improve even when the raw talent isn’t there. To be more specific, one of the reasons why Noh is such a precious writer in this industry is because she can get that fire out of her actors. She did that with Han Go-Eun and Kim Heung-Soo in More Beautiful Than Flowers making them look like real actors for the first time in their careers, and she essentially did the same with Kim Min-Hee here.

Known for her distinctive and striking dialogue, Noh poured a lot more of her personal stories into this show—the closure to Young-Sook’s character arc is pretty much taken from her own experience with her mother—which never feels like something shot on the fly. Although it’s obvious the final script was done while the show was shooting, as always Noh prepares her actors several weeks before, and it’s pretty obvious by looking at the performances that they had time to understand their characters, because there’s nobody trying to impose his or her style over the character’s aura. And at the center of it all is that ‘Solo’ of the title. Characters living solo, alone, because of the pain of their past. Soo-Hee can’t deal anymore with her mother changing partner every few months, even though she knows why she’s doing all that; Mi-Ri essentially separated from her family to stay with the man she loves, Ho-Cheol, who in turn continues to blame himself for his past, releasing his tension through his life as a third rate gangster; Ji-An seems to be doing fine on the outside, but his castle of lies is about to fall, not because of other people trying to reveal his past, a past which could ruin his present, but because he himself can’t escape the burden of all those white lies. ‘Grandma’ Mi-Young hasn’t spoken a single word in decades, hiding all the pain inside her, taking insults and everything else like a passing breeze; Min-Ho is separated from his family because of more secrets, and Young-Sook is dealing with the repercussions all her lies created. They’re all people in pain, suffering day by day, sometimes laughing in the face of tragedy, sometimes crushing under the weight of all that pressure.

No, this show is not about finding an alternative to that ‘Solo’ lifestyle in a romantic sense. We’re not dealing with characters looking for a soulmate, at least not all of them. What they’re trying to escape from is loneliness. Find someone who understands them, someone they can trust, rely on, that is what they want. The only way Min-Ho has to communicate with his mother is through phone calls and a few glares from their respective cars, while driving on the big bridge; Ho-Cheol and Mi-Ri fight all the time, pretend to break up every 15 Minutes, but then the only moments of happiness they can find is when they’re together joking, bitching at each other, having silly fights and showing how quick their temper really is. No review is really going to give justice to this plot, because it doesn’t work on plot devices and/or character development they way you expect. Characters never close the circle in a neat package: Ho-Cheol will remain an overly impulsive time-bomb, Soo-Hee will always doubt her decisions, Mi-Young will not start speaking again all of a sudden, and Min-Ho and his brother Min-Jae will not likely go back in good terms in a couple of weeks. It’s not like the usual injection of plot devices other Dramas resort to, getting rid of the obstacles in the way, and then enjoying their perfect resolution. It’s not like that because, well, life just isn’t like that.

The change in style is not simply down to using more characters: Noh, for the first time, used elements of mystery in the Drama. It might feel like something out of place given her style, but it slowly adapts, blends with the dynamics of the show in ways I didn’t expect. We’re not dealing with a whodunit perse, as the mystery is not in the accident itself, but in the psychology behind the mystery. What are those elements trying to say? They add to the overall concept of the show, to forget about the past, and start living the right way now. What that ‘right’ is, Noh never tells us. She lets her characters find those answers by themselves, as everyone creates his own sense of reality based on their experience. So while Young-Sook’s relationship with her children will certainly improve, she’ll probably continue to be a little ‘out there’, flamboyant and wonderfully eccentric in her own way. Ho-Cheol and Mi-Ri will continue to fight, and her parents will continue to disapprove their relationship, at least on the outside, not to show something is slowly changing inside. Unlike other Dramas, Noh doesn’t give us a beginning and an end. She shows the journey, or at least part of it.

But although Noh’s hand dominates this show, she’s not the sole reason why it works so well. Praise should also go to PD Gi Min-Soo, who worked with Noh on More Beautiful Than Flowers. The subtle camerawork, a little closer to urban melodramas like Who R. U. than the average Miniseries, gently guides us through Noh’s marvelous dialogue, never intruding too much, showing enough to let things transpire. And, of course, the other big plus: the acting. I want to start from the obvious, as there was even more pleasure in certain surprising discoveries later. Na Moon-Hee is simply mesmerizing. She utters two words in the entire 16 Hour Drama. Two. The first is to set up the beginning of her character’s flashback, to slowly introduce her. The last one is of devastating power, right at the end. Simple, meaningful, or using her words, beautiful. Bae Jong-Ok, more comfortable than ever inside the world of one of her favourite writers, is a joy to watch. I bet many people will have a hard time connecting with her at the beginning, but as the character slowly strips the outer layer, her performance becomes more focused and touching. And again it’s no surprise if Lee Jae-Ryong does this well. The star of 상도 (Sang Do) has been one of the industry’s most underappreciated talents, and he shows his talent here once again, in a role which fits him perfectly. Other highlights the usual able work from Jang Yong and Jung Ae-Ri, and another winner from Cheon Jung-Myung, whose explosive raw talent is emerging at such a fast pace it’s quite intimidating. You’ll hear more about this guy soon.

Yes, Yoon So-Yi and especially Lee Han also do well, but I want to reserve the biggest praise for someone else, another of Noh Hee-Kyung’s miracles. Nobody, including myself, ever thought of her as an actress. There were simply too many horrible performances, lazy star vehicles with caricatures never showing anything beyond her image. Even writer Noh wasn’t too sure about her, all she knew is that she was pretty and… and, well, that was all. The fist time she saw her try the part, after PD Gi Min-Soo convinced her to give Kim Min-Hee a chance, she didn’t seem impressed, but then everything changed the second time. And when she called her one night, not an easy feat for an actor, asking for another chance, she knew Kim was trying to do something. And that something will be pretty evident to anyone familiar with her past performances, after seeing this show.

This might turn out to be the Drama of Kim Min-Hee’s young career: not because she’s suddenly become the next Moon So-Ri, no, as far from it as possible. But she’s shockingly good here, she shows a humanity beyond her pretty face, she shows that fire she never seemed to have in the past. When she gets red in the face after Ho-Cheol (Lee Jae-Ryong) tells her why he can’t marry her, then that didn’t feel like Kim Min-Hee trying to look as angry as possible. That was Mi-Ri. Just her. Angry, confused, jealous, scared. Just Mi-Ri. And that’s a start. From now on, unless she forgets all she learned here in an instant and goes back to her old self, a la Han Go-Eun after More Beautiful Than Flower, we can finally call Kim Min-Hee an actress. And be it because of Noh’s magical dialogue, or because she gave her all for this role, that is something nobody can take away from her.

Noh’s shows always seem to face rating problems, this one deviating very little from the norm, with an excellent start at 20%, and the rest of the show average around the 12%. Why isn’t she able to attract the viewers’ interest, despite her obvious tentative to get a little closer to the mainstream, at least in terms of style? Perhaps because even in the slightly heightened sense of reality a TV Drama like this can create, it’s a little too close to home for people to take. This is not escapist entertainment, it’s not fluffy crap with pretty faces trying to fill time until they’ll say ‘I love you… foh ebahhhh”. This is a bittersweet look at how people find a ‘home away from home’, an emotional connection regardless if that comes from family ties or not. And it’s quite exceptional at that. I love all the characters in Goodbye Solo because they’re full of 성질 (temper), they’re often miserable in dealing with others, they make mistakes, they hurt people and then some. But then, just like in real life, they have the power to forget that, forgive that, laugh the day after.

Usually when you really like a show, you often want to know more about the characters after the end, to see where the roads they built will lead. But even though many questions are still left unanswered—perhaps one of Noh’s major talents when it comes to writing—at the end of the show I didn’t really need to know more about Min-Ho, Soo-Hee, Mi-Ri and all the others. Why? Because thanks to what’s so far the best script of the year, capable direction, and excellent performances I can trust they’ll do well, whatever they choose, wherever that road leads them to. Because they not only said goodbye to us, but also to that inner disease, that unwelcome companion that walked with them for years. Goodbye. Solo.

[Guest love!melody]

WOW! not only just hyunbin or just song hye gyo, but BOTH?!?!?! oh lord! this drama is going to be BIG <3333 LOL can't wait for it to come out~ hehehehe ^^ one drama to look forward to ^^

[deka_if]

^^ thanks for the info, she looks so pretty

putriN, I love your fantasy

I should start to watch some of the writers works while Im waiting for the H2 couple

hi alex ! it seems u and putriN used call ths duo .. hye kyo - hyun bin as H2.... i like it... so simple and recognized !

everyone ! good morning !

[putriN]

^^^ hi deka - good morning !!!

honey ping - thanks for sharing your HOT artwork

kdramafanusa - many thanks for providing the insights of scriptwriter Noh

wow.... quite detail long info you posted here....

will definitely make an effort to read it.... since we still have abt 6mths away

[Guest tiffanyco]

I am totally in love with this cast! XD

Hyun Bin and Song Hye Gyo. It can't get even more perfect.

Totally can't wait for this.

[Guest lakorns]

I was about to die when I heard about this about a week ago.

[utkim]

WOW, thanks for the insights about the writer Helen, make me feel a little bit more safe for SHK & HB . I should probably start to watch her drama then

Honey ping, beautiful artwork . Still waiting for a SHK & HB siggy to change

[Guest jdas]

finger cross cuz its like dream come true for this dreamy mc steamy couple

[Guest alexdan]

whoaaa, beautiful fanart and 2 great articles, I need a lil time to go through this. Thanks for the effort, Kdramafanusa

[Guest Janie Simply]

HoneyPing, it's good to see you active again with your artwork

Yonhap News on TWTLI collaboration.

http://tieba.baidu.com/%CB%CE%BB%DB%C7%C7/...ebe9fc723ce2d1/

Baidu

Repost from utkim

Song Hye Kyo Kept Promise of 4 Years to PD Pyo Min Soo

Actress Song Hye Kyo firmly kept a promise from four years ago that she'd make a small screen comeback.

Song Hye Kyo who has a close connection with PD Pyo Min Soo from the 2004 KBS 2TV drama 'Full House,' kept her promise of four years that her drama comeback would be in the KBS 2TV mini-series, 'The World They Live In' (writer Noh Hee Kyeung).

Immediately after 'Full House,' PD Pyo Min Soo made the following proposal to Song Hye Kyo, "Writer Noh Hee Kyeung is writing a drama that will deal with the realities of life and I want us to work together on the project." Song Hye Kyo joyfully responded by promising that would be her next drama project.

Although it was only a verbal promise, during the four years Song Hye Kyo stayed true to it. She received many drama proposals humbly refusing them all. In the end, it's 'The World They Live In' where she'll reunite with PD Pyo Min Soo.

PD Pyo stated, "I strongly believed that she would keep her promise. Over three years of the planning process, it seems that I made the character to fit Song Hye Kyo. In a short span of time, she has humbly declined many good drama proposals. I am so thankful to Song Hye Kyo for her devotion to 'The World They Live In.' "

@Shanda

Pyo/Kyo

[utkim]

Jan sis, finally I see you here dearie . PD Pyo and Kyo have such a close contact , hopefully HB will have a great time working with them .

Thanks for the clip Jan.

cap from the link

[Guest Janie Simply]

Yes, utkim sis, I have waited too long for my first post, haven't I Like everyone, I can't wait to hear more news on this dramedy -I'm ready to cry and to laugh. Thanks to Soy for spearheading this thread

Meet "THE PRODUCERS"

ps by Silverwing

ps by Hyun Bin Sky.com

credit: Baidu

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http://tieba.baidu.com/f?kz=373112120

[utkim]

Yes, utkim sis, I have waited too long for my first post, haven't I Like everyone, I can't wait to hear more news on this dramedy -I'm ready to cry and to laugh. Thanks to Soy for spearheading this thread

Better late than never dear . Can't wait for the Nov. to come. Wonder when they are going to announce the rest of supporting casts ?

[Guest SH<3]

Looking forward to this drama.

Haven't seen Song Hyo Gyo and Hyun Bin for a while (:

Can't wait

[Guest insideMYheart]

Oh my goodness, my heart nearly skipped a beat when I saw this thread listed. I love both of these stars and like everyone else, I can't wait for this drama.

[Guest birdie2406]

OMG! Hyun Bin and SHK, my favourite actor and actress is starring in the same drama!

[Guest *beccas]

OMG....i will definitely watch this drama....can't wait...

i was really screaming when i read that song hye kyo was going to do a drama

with hyun bin...seriously hottest korean stars ever...

i still cant believe this pairing.....................

i cant wait that longggggggggggggggggggggggg

[Guest lakorns]

Wow it took 3 years to plan and write the script and she did not accept any other role until now. I can't wait to see her come back on screen.

[Guest Shini]

^Totally...i hope this is going to be her huge comeback...

and omg this is the most intresting pair so far in 2008 dramas~ cant wait !! the plot is different from the usual too..nice nice..