You’re Beautiful: Episode 1
by javabeans | October 8, 2009
A few things about You’re Beautiful:
1. Trademark Hong sisters comedy. In my book, this is a good thing.
2. Yes, it goes overboard a little. But because of the abundant sense of humor, this lands it in corny-awesome territory for me, not corny-embarrassing.
3. Jang Geun-seok (and the rest of the group, actually) is perfectly cast.
4. Park Shin-hye is ADORABLE. So is Lee Hong-ki.
5. I think I have found my drama crack for the year
CHARACTERS & BACKGROUND
GO MI-NYEO (Park Shin-hye) is a young apprentice nun who has lived at a convent ever since she was brought there as an orphan. Because of her strict upbringing, Mi-nyeo speaks very formal Korean, which is doubly cute when placed in real-world situations because it’s so stilted. It’s like in Soulmate, where the Yu-jin character spoke in hyper-elevated honorifics, resulting in a quaint effect.
Despite her sweet nature and good intentions, Mi-nyeo constantly ends up causing trouble. You practically expect the nuns to burst out singing, “How do you solve a problem like Maria?” For instance, during mass (for which she was late), she spies a girl watching something on her mini TV player and nicely asks her to put it away. The brat ignores her and resists, and Mi-nyeo tries to pry the player out of the girl’s hands. This leads to a brief struggle, and the player skids out of her grasp and slides across the floor — but now that it’s unplugged, it blares loud pop music in the middle of service.
The girl was watching a concert of the country’s top idol group, A.N.JELL, a three-member boy band led by HWANG TAE-KYUNG (Jang Geun-seok).
Tae-kyung is surly and cynical, constantly walking around with a frown on his face. He seems to take his music very seriously, and there’s the hint that he may want to move away from the idol stuff and onto more thoughtful fare. In any case, his constant pessimism contrasts starkly with the good-natured personalities of his two bandmates.
We don’t know much about their backgrounds, but the character profile lists JEREMY (member of pop-rock band FT Island Lee Hong-ki) as a Korean-British gyopo. He’s also very outgoing, upbeat, and quirky. (He kind of reminds me of Heechul if he were crossed with Ha-rim (“My Chan!”) of Coffee Prince.) Very cute.
KANG SHIN-WOO (Jung Yong-hwa) is the more level-headed one, the calm middle ground between Jeremy’s energy and Tae-kyung’s emo-ism. He’s perceptive and kind.
The band name “A.N.JELL” plays off the “angel” motif, but is pronounced “ay-en-jell,” since their management company is called A.N. Agency. They are managed by AHN SUNG-CHAN (Jung Chan!).