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Secret Garden korean drama review
Completed
Secret Garden
5 people found this review helpful
by Kiseki
Feb 18, 2015
20 of 20 episodes seen
Completed
Overall 7.0
Story 6.0
Acting/Cast 8.0
Music 6.0
Rewatch Value 1.0
I picked Secret Garden to watch as it was strongly recommended to me by a friend. Oh boy did i start doubting her taste after completing this drama. Why? First of all the prince and the pauper theme is extremely overused, cliché, and worst of all Secret Garden attempts originality by injecting needless humor and fantasy themes that not only fails to improve the overall story actually make it worse in the long run. Finally towards the end there is a rush attempt to play catch up because the plot was so loose in the first half so the end had to come up with a plausible explanation for the main character's obsessive love (via fate/destiny the usual kdrama troupe) and the ending was a half hearted attempt to give viewers who actually stuck to the end what they are looking for. This drama is one of the most obvious attempts of 'pleasing the audience to get higher rating' in kdrama, because frankly the last 20min of the show was so disgustingly corny I did not need to see it. 6/10 for this story out of respect for Mark Twain's Prince and Pauper being a masterpiece of contemporary fiction. Moving on to the character, cast and acting. The only cast i'm familiar with is Ha Ji Won, she's a pretty girl and remarkable action actress. However sadly she lacks facial expression variety and seem to have the same face for all situation. She didn't impress me in King 2 Heart and failed to impress me in Secret Garden. The character she is playing must have extremely low self esteem to continue 'liking' a guy who verbally abuses her on regular bases (as well as his entire family for that matter). Next Hyun Bin... Well considering his role is suppose to be an immature brat of a rich boy, he does a good job of portraying that role. Hyun Bin's character is suppose to be 34 to Ha Ji Won's 30, but throughout the entire show i felt like it was the other way around. Well regardless to summarize my impression of this couple it was - no chemistry. Seriously, i spend the first 15 episodes wondering at what point does Ha Ji Won's character fall in love with Hyun Bin's. Was it after they switched bodies and she checked his body out personally? There was no spark at all, unless she was eventually convinced by his wealth, connection, and could not stand his immature attitude any longer. My favorite two characters in this drama was actually Yoon Sang Hyun (Oska) and Lee Jong Suk (Han Tae Seon). Believe it or not I felt the strongest chemistry between them two (lol), kudos and props and applause to Lee Jong Suk for being able to pull off the 'i'm gay' vibe perfectly and fantastically. Yoon Sang Hyun's (Oska) reaction to being hit on by a guy was also hilariously funny. Damn it by the end of the drama I was seriously hoping for a kiss between them! Other notable characters include Yoo In Na, Lee Phillip and Kim Sa Rang. This drama was made better by the cast of great support characters 8/10. In terms of music, it was ok. I mean in a drama where you don't feel much chemistry between the main leads how good can the music be? Music is there to enhance the romantic atmosphere, but if there is none in the first place it's really hard to judge. Some songs that stood out was the ending theme, it had some good fantasy/mystical elements to it in order to complement the 'Secret Garden' theme. 6/10 I would not rewatch this drama if my life depended on it. Episode 7-15 was a total waste of my time and only good for a laugh, in fact I am of the opinion it could have been skipped altogether and wouldn't have affected the story at all. Overall I cant say i enjoyed this drama much but it wasn't a total disaster due to the charisma of the support cast and the detailed side stories focusing on Oska and other side characters. I feel you really have to be mentally prepared for certain genres when coming into this drama, least you get shell shocked at the way the main lead treats and woos his love interest.
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