Monday 11 March 2013

28. Coffee Prince (The First Shop Of Coffee Prince)

Broadcast: Jul-Aug 2007
Episodes: 17, Romance/Comedy
Cast:
Yoon Eun-hye as Go Eun-chan
Gong Yoo as Choi Han-gyul
Lee Sun-gyun as Choi Han-seong
Chae Jung-an as Han Yoo-joo
Lee Eon as Hwang Min-yeop (waiter at Coffee Prince)
Kim Dong-wook as Jin Ha-rim (waiter at Coffee Prince)
Kim Jae-wook as Noh Sun-ki (waffle chef at Coffee Prince)


This drama stars a very  young and lean Yoon Eun Hye and Gong Yoo. At first glance, you'll think the drama is mainly focused on making coffee and opening up a cafe. For the coffee drinkers out there, you'll be disappointed. The main focus of this drama is on the developing relationship of the characters Go Eun Chan and Choi Han Gyul.

Choi Han Gyul loves being free and doesn't want to be tied down to the family business. His grandmother wants him to come home, work at the company and sets up match maker sessions for him so he can settle down. He has no interest in these things and he is still hung up with the one sided love he has for one of his best girl friends who is dating his cousin.

Go Eun Chan is a tomboy who works extremely hard to earn money on the table to feed the family. She holds many jobs from teaching young kids Tae Kwan Do to making deliveries. It doesn't help that she has the biggest appetite :)

Han Gyul mistakens Eun Chan for a boy and pays her to pretend to be his gay lover to get  his grand mother off his back. That only stopped the match making setups. The grandmother gave him an ultimatum and a test to fix up a broken down coffee shop.This was also to prove how capable he was since his father thinks he's just a frivolous spender with no sense of responsibility.

Han Gyul hires 3 male staff for the start up of the coffee shop. Interesting mix: one unintelligent beefy guy who is in love with Eun Chan's younger sister and lets her string him along for the majority of the time; one guy that doesn't stop talking who is a complainer and whiner; the last one is a Japanese guy who is very private and doesn't speak much at all. Eun Chan begs Han Gyul for a job there to earn extra cash. The older barista that helped the opening of the shop has known Eun Chan for years and knew that she is a girl. He was against it for her to work there because she would have to hide her gender while working there but she was able to persuade him not to say anything.

It wasn't too clear why Han Gyul only wanted to hire guys for the shop. Maybe his tactic was to attract more female customers using flower boy staff, although I wouldn't consider the staff there to be flower boys at all.

Things did get interesting as the relationship between Eun Chan and Han Gyul developed. They had a lot of fun together and was always joking and laughing. Initially Han Gyul treated Eun Chan like she was his younger brother but when intimate feelings started to develop, he was conflicted with his own sexuality and questioned if he was really gay. Eun Chan enjoyed spending time with him and continued to deceive him as the lie was getting to big to confess. She didn't know what to do either. 

When Han Gyul discovered her secret, she tried to talk things over with him but he was so hurt and angry that he didn't want to see her. He felt betrayed to be fooled like that. Slowly he came around and they patched things up. They started dating but things were not smooth sailing from there. The father and grandmother were against Eun Chan due to her poor family background. The grandmother however softened a bit after she met Eun Chan seeing how hard working she was and how determined she was in her ambitions. She helps Eun Chan in terms of finances to train to be a barista in Italy.

After a couple of years of long distance relationship, the last scene shows her coming back, looking more feminine and more sophistocated.

This drama received really good reviews, higher than what I would've personally given it. It was enjoyable and the leads had strong chemistry, but I thought the storyline was just so so. Maybe for it's time it was considered really good. There were a lot of boring bits and I thought the drama just dragged on. The side story of Han Gyul's cousin and his girlfriend's on and off relationship was very boring and I felt it was just added to make the drama longer.

I really liked the compatibility of Eun Chan and Han Gyul. They were both so fun and the relationship was so playful and loving. The relationship suited them and the drama very well.

Again, this theme has been portrayed in kdramas so often, I think it's getting a bit bland. Eun Chan looks nothing like a guy. I think kdramas with these themes are playing with the fact that Korean flower boys can look so feminine that you can't tell if the guy is actually a girl.

I didn't like the sound track in this drama so have not listed any songs. Nothing stood out for me.

Good drama, enjoyable and fun to watch.

Rating: 3/5

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