Coffee Prince (2007)

Suspend disbelief and enjoy the story play out

Coffee Prince is one of the mistaken gender identity dramas - in this case, Go Eun Chan, the head of a household because her father passed away, is working 3-4 jobs to support her mother and sister. She meets the rich grandson of a coffee empire and things transpire from there.

There are 2 problems which prevent me from rating this higher. First, I'm not sure if others noticed it but either there's a lot of orange tone stuff in the sets, or they over-used the orange light filter in a lot of scenes so it looks like everything has a brownish Orange hue to it. This was rather distracting in some parts. Second, this drama requires suspension of disbelief because there's no way any one in their right mind would mistake Go Eun Chan as a male in real life, as I'd expect 98% of people would automatically guess she's a female. That makes some parts of her acting a little implausible.

However once the viewer gets past these flaws, the rest of the series is a joy to watch. The cast works well together, there's no real bad acting and as the story plays out it almost has a "fluffy" and innocent type feel even though there are several raunchy type scenes. There's genuine chemistry between the 2 leads, plus it's impossible not to love Gong Yoo. In one scene he even admitted he's a clothes horse, and he's right. Everything looks so good on him all I want to do is buy those outfits for my man even though there's no chance they will fit him or look half as good.

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My first 'old school' kdrama

Coffee Prince (CP) is really my first kdrama that it's before 2013. I will start by saying that I was a little hesitant to watch it, because I had read reviews and watched clips of other old school kdramas like boys over flowers and the heirs and these two seem quite cringey to me and that's why I wasn't sure if I will be able to finish CP. I'm a fan of Gong Yoo and I have already watched Goblin and Silent Sea and I wanted to watch another serries with him so CP was on my list for some time.

Soooo I finished it and will gladly say I wasn't dissappointed, I actually binge watched it for the biggest part which is something I didn't expect since most of the times I take my time with romcoms. It doesn't have big cliffhangers but the story flows so smooth that I wanted more with each episode.

Now let's start with the real review. First I want to mention that it felt like a time machine, I felt a certain nostalgia from the early 2000s even tho I was only 10 years old in 2007, I have vivid memories of how the world was. The cellphones, the clothes the lack of internet and generally not overusing technology, was something that kept our days more carefree and simple. So CP is a simple kdrama the actors don't wear much make-up, the clothes are simple and there are feelings of warmth and intimacy. The acting of the whole cast is AMAZING especially the female lead, Yoon Eun Hye, did an excellent job. I aplaud her. Her acting was natural and stayed true to the character while there was development. Gong Yoo was also great, I can now say that this role (in serries) is my favourite for now, above Goblin for sure. The chemistry of the main leads was also great, I was smilling like an idiot to the romantic scenes. I have to mention I fell in love with young Kim Dong Wook, such a heartthrod. The only character that annoyed me a little was 'Yoo Joo', she seemed a bit immature. Before I started it I didn't see Jae Wook was also part of it so that was a pleasant surpirse, R.I.P. to Lee Eon everyone was such a memorable character.

Lastly I'm quite a tomboy myself and I often wear men clothes, so seeing 'Eun Chan' being herself so freely and not giving a fck about what people think of her, she gave me confidence to continue being myself as well. I also loved how 'open-minded' it is for such an old kdrama, even in more modern ones you don't see much talks about sexuality or gendres. I will probably rewatch it some time in the future.

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Nice enough romance drama

Although I wasn’t keen on the pacing and the 2nd couple with their on-off again drama, this kdrama was still watchable enough on Netflix! I was glad that they were able to get a FL who is at least a tomboy and acts likeable for a change! ML was good enough as well. The pair of them are so cute together with their “bromance” like relationship, if only it was about them than the 2nd couple. Otherwise I would have added another few stars on this drama.

Anyways if peeps wanna see a different type of romance than the typical old fashioned ones, it’s good to give this a watch on Netflix!

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True romance

like a lot of people I loved watching this drama, I still think about it daily since I first watched it. I started watching kdrama's in 2018 it hasn't been that long, but I've seen my fair share of romance dramas; this has got to be one of the best and well written drama I've watched. This made me fall in love with Gong yoo, it's a story that makes you want to hug each character and want to be part of the found family at prince café. You get annoyed at the characters including the leads, you laugh and cry with them. If you are thinking about skipping this drama because of the premise of this, I would give it a try because it's so worth it. In the beginning I wasn't sure if I wanted to watch myself, I kept pushing it off because I'm not really a fan of a girl pretending to be a guy in dramas because it can come with it's own set of issues, but what I love about this drama is that they address this issues and it becomes a big conflict with the characters they don't just brush this off. So give it a chance.

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Since there are already a lot of good, positive reviews for this drama, I'll keep mine brief and focus on what I disliked.
I really, really loved the first 2/3rds of the drama. However, the drama loses interest for me after the romantic tension is gone and all the problems are solved (I seriously don't count his grandma's resistance a real problem, since we have seen how nice she is to Eun Chan in previous episodes and know there is a strong likelihood she will come around). Sure, there are some plot points to complete and tie up during the remaining episodes, but none of them come close to being as engaging as watching Han Kyul's emotional turmoil over liking Eun Chan. I also did not care too much about the three side couples in the drama--even Yoo Joo's and Han Seong's relationship became dull for me around episode 11.
Apart from all that, yes, the drama is great and deserves all the hype it gets.

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Here's the deal with this drama. Episodes 1-6 were just ok to me. They were decent episodes, but the bickering chemistry between the leads was only there for the first 1-2 episodes, then fizzled out and they were interested in other people. I started to lose interest. Then episode 7 hit and it's at this point that their chemistry starts to be out of this world. Those episodes are absolutely a 10/10 masterpiece. Even if you don't watch anything else, you MUST watch episodes 7 -to whichever episode they finally end up together. Thank me later.

However just like in the beginning, I also wasn't that crazy about once they finally got together. This time it was mostly because the writer used lots of immature arguments and fights between them as plot points, almost like they ran out of ideas and so now the show just focused on their arguing over everything. It was beyond bickering chemistry, it was bordering unhealthy. But the show was still totally watchable in these later episodes, and they were still the most adorable couple. I still can't recommend it enough, just beware that there's ups and downs to this show as you go through it.

By the way if you're hesitating to watch this because of the gender bending, do it, you won't regret it.

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Entertaining Rom Com.

Gong yoo is a very flexible actor. It shows here that his love for eun cha is so great that he promised for an all in relationship because he thought that his lover is a guy. Eun cha on the other hand shows how he cares for his family that she has to disguise a man to work in the coffee prince. I like the part when gong yoo and his grandma help eun chan to fulfill her dreams to be a renown barrista and she has to study abroad. On the other hand, gong yoo decided to stay in korea and did not pursue his ultimate dream job as a lego designer in usa because he does not want to be far from eu chan. I think that is a true measure of love by willing to sacrifice for the happiness of someone

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cute, funny, comforting

It's 2022 already and I thought that I will watch such an old drama :).
Even though the production is different from what we see now, it is so good too watch and (at least for me) the quality wasn't a bother at all. When it comes to the story it's really unique and precious. The couple made my heart warm too many times. There was something different in those romantic moments between Eun-chan and Han-gyeol. These moments are really pure and throught the series you can feel that some of them weren't scripted.

If you like something light, funny and comforting, give it a chance and you won't regret it :)

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One of the best!

The first few Kdrama I watched and totally in love with it! Moreover, I end up in a huge crush with Gong Yoo!!! This drama gives me butterflies with the gender neutral situation and realising gender doesn't matter. Many times I think it's beautiful given that it was showing in 2007. Until today I still think that Gong Yoo should be with Yoon Eun-Hye (she's so cute) and they make a great match.

With this drama, casts like Kim Dong-Wook and Kim Jae-Wook caught my eye and still continue supporting them till today. The drama is so fun, engaging and no dull moments, I still misses the whole squad.

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